miscellanea

photos

2005-06-20T22:10:00.000+04:00

some photos that never got posted:

and that about wraps up the photos that weren't posted that will be posted. if something's missing, let me know.

st.petersburg, going away parties, moscow, home

2005-06-12T03:28:00.000+04:00

i'm home. i'd like to share stories and pictures from the last week, but i'm not sure i'm going to get the energy up to do it anytime soon. i guess pretty much everyone who's reading this has already heard about most of my last week, or taken part in it in some way or another. so that's all for now. this blog is taking a creative hiatus, for the time being. maybe a few days. maybe a few weeks. ..

petersburg

2005-06-03T21:17:00.000+04:00

i'm leaving tonight for petersburg. should be there tomorrow morning, barring certain disaster. white nights, hermitage, venice of the north. if for some reason i decide to leave, it'll probably be monday night. hopefully stories and (selected) pictures on tuesday.

hail, minesweeper, babushki...

2005-05-27T14:36:00.000+04:00

I had probably the best view of the first real lightning storm to hit yaroslavl this summer. from my ninth story apartment, the entire historical center is visible, and the view is even better than from the kremlin's clock tower. so i am going to boast about it and enjoy it for the next two weeks. anyway i was watching out my window and on the horizon i could see blue skies to the left, this tremendously dark cloud over the middle of my view of the city, and jokers to the right. actually, just blue sky over there too.

so there's this relatively small storm cloud over the middle of the city and i can see the sunshine on both sides of it. beneath the cloud it looks like smog had enveloped the city. i stupidly stood out on my glassed in balcony and watched the lightning hit all around the center for a good two hours. it hailed as hard as i've ever seen hail, and for an unusually long time. there were accidents all over the city because of flash flooding. it was great.

other good things: last night i spaced out while studying for the oral exam i was supposed to take today, and, as is often the case, started a game of expert minesweeper. i wasn't even really paying attention, and when i finished the game the little 'enter your name' window popped up, which meant i'd broken my record. now, this might not seem like a big deal to you, but odds are there is some minesweeper reading this, already wondering if it was better than his high score. i should also add that i attained my previous expert high score of 89 seconds during a 7 hour playing binge during a rainy day at russian school. i was so excited that i wrote lelia an SMS to tell her about it. and she called me back to tell me how hard she was laughing at me. new score: 81 seconds. hah! HAA!

finally, what you were all waiting for. another wacky babushka story. i was walking down the flowery little side street toward the internet library, just enjoying the weather and the humid flowery air. i said hello to the two grandmothers who always sit outside for as long as twelve hours a day and just watch who's coming and going. one of them was cutting branches of flowers from one of the trees, and she turned around with a big smile and said hello back to me. the other, who was standing near the door took three steps toward me and started yelling:

"THOSE ARE OUR FLOWERS. WE PLANTED THEM. WE'RE ALLOWED TO DO THIS BECAUSE THEY ARE OUR FLOWERS."

pause. the agitated one obviously took my gaping jaw stare of disbelief, as, well, just that. disbelief. and started in again about how they really were her flowers. i ended up just stumbling backward and saying something about how pretty they were. only now i've realized that the only real course of action was whipping out my phone and telling her i was going to call the cops, just in case.

actually, the moral of the story is giving people the benefit of the doubt. i don't relate to them because i didn't grow up when or where they did. when you walk around a city seeing old, old women collecting bottles and eating out of trashcans you have to put aside the soviet bashing for a minute and stop to wonder what went wrong...at the very least it puts a little perspective on all those numbers you catch in the news about older russians missing the soviet union.

on a lighter relating-to-people-note, i met 3 people from nebraska and the one that seemed interested in talking to me was OK. there are some good people in red states! except for kansas. you can't count dorthy, she died a long time ago.

beginning of the end

2005-05-21T20:36:00.000+04:00

i was recently writing to comrade garner in moscow (re: eventual trip to moscow, if you're reading this calvin - how about 3-4-5 or something in that ballpark? i don't really know when all of my exams are supposed to be yet) about the state of the i and i realized that i really haven't written anything here at all lately. good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

this story is coming to an end. it's author is tired of the dreary and unoriginal black template he chose.

i could stay here (yaroslavl) for the rest of the summer or, just as easily, pack tonight and be on a train/plane for home tomorrow. i've got a little less than three weeks left in yaroslavl. i am a lame duck exchange student.

actually it's really not that bad. the weather is superb, and i've got time to kill. since i've last written i've spent time at my friend's dacha, had drinks with a norwegian pornographer, broken into and slept on the roof of an abandoned building, eaten шашлыки all over the city, read a good book (Камера Обскура - Набоков) and started another.

i know it sounds glamorous, but really it'll be nice to get home. relax and read a book by the ocean. do anything by the ocean. i'm flying home on june 10th. a bunch of the americans have already left. paul went to mongolia. barring some sudden realization that he's actually of mongolian (and not russian) blood after all, we expect to see him back in yaroslavl for den' goroda.

so that's about all. the fellas at the hole are waiting for me.

день труда, пасха, да жив я....

2005-05-04T12:01:00.000+04:00

so i'd been planning a big comeback/oh-that's-good-he's-still-alive post for a while now, but i always get to the computer lab and...space out. i read the technology section of the ny times. i didn't even do that when i got the damn paper in my mailbox every day. did you know that cell phones are bulking up!?

so what haven't i been telling you about, in 10 minutes or less?

may 1st was Easter/May Day/Labor Day/Communists marching early in the morning beneath my bedroom window Day. They got about twenty kids from a high school marching band and a couple hundred grandmothers with their grandchildren in tow. This was the big holiday in the Soviet Union, and so I was more or less expecting a lot of festivities. but no. my unassuming town of some 10,000 people in southern maine has bigger parades. just never with the red flags and komsomol grannies.

also it was orthodox easter. i'm not going to get into why their easter came a few weeks after the rest of the world's easter, but it has something to do with the orthodox church being backward in its own special way. despite a few invitations, i resisted the urge to go to a midnight service and stand around for 3+ hours listening to a service in old church slavonic. maybe this makes me a bad person and a disinterested student-abroad. maybe not.

in other good news, roman "the man" arhkangelskiy is coming to visit for the weekend. the beer tents are opening all over the city. this is in reaction to the (alleged) passing of a law banning beer consumption in public. my informal polling in yaroslavl shows the people to be either confused, or disbelieving. or knowing and disregarding. in any event, if public alcohol consumption and urination were the two big things pushing you toward studying abroad in russia, don't lose heart. they don't seem to be going anywhere fast. people are out walking, all the time. everything seems to be winding down. my host mom is more often at her dacha and at work than at home (ergo) i am cooking for myself and eating all the better for it. this is a good time to be in yaroslavl. also i think i was interviewed last night? no pen or paper. a bunch of stupid questions about world war two. or the great patriotic fatherland war, depending on where you bought your history books. some journalist trying to bait me into saying all the idiotic things that russians grow up assuming americans think. So when did the war start? you probably think it started in 1941, huh? so who won the war? you probably think it was america, huh? shut up, you. you would have been fighting the war with shovels and pitchforks if it weren't for lend-lease. and i know how many russians died in the war. also i know how many of them died because of stalin's ineptitude.

so there might be a picture of me in one of yaroslavl's biggest tabloids throwing a can of fish at a poster of a fascist. really not sure how all that will turn out.

but one minute left. adieu. maybe pictures next time, if i get over to netzone.

american culture days

2005-04-19T22:45:00.000+04:00

yaroslavl state university is hosting 'american culture days' all this week, with (mostly) professors reading papers about various aspects of american culture and life. for whatever reason, they asked me to talk about "key questions in contemporary american political life." i've never been nuts about preparing speeches, but i've had it up to my ears with russians' ideas on american politics, so i consented. and i did have an interesting conversation today with a guy who things the democrats wanted to lose in 2004. and so here's what i had to say, for my russian readers. i decided to go for impartiality because there's no other way i could have gotten through it without tears and vulgarity. also, sorry about the mistakes. i'm also leaving in all the goofy introduction stuff, so you can get the full feeling for how silly it was.

Добрый День, Дамы и Господа!
Меня зовут Скотт Роуз. Я студент Американского Миддлбери Колледжа и в настоящее время обучаюсь в Ярославском Университете на историческом факультете. Свое выступление я хотел бы посвятить вопросам взаимоотношений политических партий в США. Это связано с тем, что за год обучения в России мне часто приходилось участвовать в политических дискуссиях и я понял, что представления русских о политической ситуации в Америке очень приблизительны. И я хотел бы в этот вопрос внести некоторую ясность.

Современная американская политическая жизнь отмечена серьезными противоречиями. Это противоречия между двумя главными партиями Демократической и Республиканской. И это противоречия между этими партиями и их избирателями. Президентство Джорджа Буша углубило раскол между партиями. Отношения между Демократами и Республиканцами стали более враждебными. Стороны практически неспособны идти на компромисс. Главные вопросы, которые стоят перед Америкой и ее политическими партиями сегодня – как готовиться к выборам в Конгресс в 2006, как восстанавливать объединение партий с их сторонниками, и как предотвратить падение американского правительства в пропасть.

Долгожительство двух политических партий в Америке долго было стабилизирующим фактором в американской политике; политические деятели в такой системе считаются более ответственными за свою политику, потому что политические партии считаются ответственными, если у них плохие кандидаты.

Главным элементом этой политической последовательности является то, что политические платформы Республиканцев и Демократов редко изменяются, и если они изменяются, то. И Республиканцы и Демократы изо всех сил пытаются прямо сейчас реорганизовать себя и свой образ, но это сложно сделать, и чтобы не испугать их традиционных избирателей и новых избирателей, которых они надеются привлечь в партию. Кроме того, такие слова как "либерал" и "консерватор" теряют свое значение в американской политической беседе, потому что обе стороны имеют очень либеральные и очень консервативные позиции, в зависимости от проблемы и исторического контекста. Демократов, например, можно называть консерваторами в дебатах по изменению процедур Сената по вопросам судебных назначений. Разнобой в понимании между словами либерал и консерватор, наблюдается и при обращении к экономическому предпочтению, социальному/моральному предпочтению и даже в традиционном академическом смысле слов: стремление к изменению (либералы) и стремление к status quo (консерваторы). Само собой разумеется, очень немного людей могут быть строго классифицированы как консерваторы или либералы.

Республиканцы, традиционно "консервативная" партия, которая одобряет небольшое правительство, финансовую ответственность и независимость штатов, переживает трудное сейчас время, из-за огромных военных расходов администрации Буша. Аналогично, многие в Республиканской партии не хотят изменять очень старые правила Сената о назначении судей, потому что в самом ближайшем будущем Республиканцы могут оказаться в меньшинстве. Защита права меньшинства в правительстве важнее чем краткосрочные политические победы.

Демократы, традиционно либералы, «которые представляли работающих американцев», теряют поддержку своих традиционных избирателей из-за позиций по поводу абортов и однополых браков. В то время как демократы работают на увеличение социальных расходов (медицинских, образовательных, и т. д.) они теряют свою социальную базу, потому что их взгляды на вопросы контроля оружия, аборта, однополых браков и других социальных проблем непопулярны у религиозных консерваторов и других категорий населения в южных и центральных штатах. Во многих случаях, работающие американцы голосуют за Республиканских кандидатов даже при том, что это в определенной степени вредит их экономическому состоянию, потому что они оценивают социальные проблемы (аборт, однополые браки) выше чем экономические проблемы как например медицинский обслуживания, пособия по безработице и т.д.

Таким образом, наиболее важной в американской политической жизни является проблема: как изменятся эти две партии до 2008, когда придет время выбирать преемника Джорджа Буша. Достигнутый успех в Ираке может проложить путь к другому Республиканскому президенту (как, например, Джон Макэйн из штата Аризона), который популярен и среди избирателей придерживается умеренный взглядов.

Экономические проблемы, увеличивающаяся цена нефти, длительные военные операции, и провал реформы социального обеспечения могли привести демократов к победе.
Ключевые показатели будут выборы в 2006 в Конгресс, когда обе стороны должны будут выбрать представителей в Сенат и Палату представителей. Демократы, особенно, должны будут решить, поддерживать ли они по-прежнему право делать аборты, чтобы за их кандидатов голосовали в южных и центральных штатах.

Много Демократических активистов, которые одобряют право аборта, понимают, что эта часть платформы национальной стратегии демократам дорого обошлось. Аналогично, Республиканцы недавно сделали оплошность. Я имею в виду прохождение через Конгресс непопулярного закона, о попытке спасение жизни женщины находящейся в коме, у которой муж решил прекратить обеспечение ее искусственным питанием. Обе партии и их политические стратеги часто неправильно понимают американское общественное мнение.

Главные вопросы останутся тем же самым: Ирак, социальное обеспечение, аборт, однополые браки, и процедуры назначения судей - самые большие проблемы сегодня. С недавними успехами в Ираке, Республиканцы могли бы пользоваться поддержкой, несмотря на длительные военные операции и невозможность найти оружие массового поражения. Администрация Буша недавно предложила, большого числа военных солдат из Ирака уже 2006. Это будет большой поддержкой для Республиканцев перед выборами в Конгресс.

Джордж Буш сделал реформу системы социального обеспечения главным приоритетом для его второго срока, и он теперь оказывается перед сильней оппозицией демократов и прохладной реакции части Республиканцев, потому что проблема в настоящее время непопулярна среди американцев. Есть также проблема назначений судей. В федеративной судебной системе Объединенных штатов, судьи назначаются президентом и затем утверждаются Сенатом. Это было чисто техническим процессом, и Сенат обычно подтверждал полномочие президентских кандидатов с незначительными дебатами или вообще без них. Однако недавно, из-за важности Верховного Суда в решении случаев о социальных проблемах, таких как права аборта и однополый брак, и либералы и консерваторы пробовали назначить судей, которым они доверяют, и поддерживают их политические взгляды.

Вице-президент Чейни предлагает изменить правила в этом процессе, чтобы разрешить простым большинством (50 из 100) сенаторов подтверждать полномочия судей в противоположность традиционным 60. Республиканцы первоначально назвали это «ядерной угрозой» и теперь называют это угроза конституции из-за общественной обратной реакции в очевидном игнорировании конституционной процедуры. Несколько важных Республиканских Сенаторов, включая Сенатора Маккэйна заявили, что, в то время как они поддерживают назначение судей, Президентских кандидатов, они точно будут голосовать против изменения конституционных процедур, потому что это - важная защита для политического меньшинства. Маккэйн мог использовать эту и другие проблемы, по которым он расходится с Белым домом, чтобы начать кампанию по выборам президента в 2008 (он был кандидатом в 2000, но проиграл Джорджу Бушу).

Возможно самые важные политические/социальные проблемы в Америке сегодня - права аборта и однополый брак. Начиная с 1973 решения Roe vs. Wade, когда Верховный Суд решил, что право аборта не могло быть ограничено федеральным правительством, христианские религиозные лидеры вели очень активную и хорошо организованную кампанию против аборта. Аналогично, много штатов за последние несколько лет издали законы, чтобы «защитить брак», которые точно определяют брак только между мужчиной и женщиной. Это проявилось как обратная реакция в ответ на решении Штата Массачусетс позволить однополые браки и «гражданские союзы» штата Вермонт, которые дают равные юридические и экономические правила для этих пар.

Наконец есть вопрос кандидатов в президенты в 2008. В то время как предполагаемые выдвижения кандидатов давно начались, все еще слишком рано действительно знать, что принесут следующие два года. Нет никаких очевидных преемников Буша в его администрации, и много людей обращают свои взоры к другим Республиканцам, таким как Маккэйн в поисках возможного преемника. Аналогично, Демократы изо всех сил пытаются после их поражения в 2004 сформировать новый национальный образ; Джон Керри предложил, стать кандидатом снова, но многие Демократы им до сих пор не очень довольны. Сенатор Хиллэри Клинтон (жена Билла Клинтона) также считается возможным кандидатом от Демократической партии, как и другие ведущие Демократические Сенаторы. Победа несомненно будет на стороне тех, кто предложит лучшие реформы, чтобы быть в контакте с избирателями. Обе стороны оказываются перед необходимостью начинать работать в компромиссе, и важным первым шагом было бы мирное разрешение конфликта по назначению судей. Возможно самый многообещающий признак сближения - постепенное отступление Республиканцев от очень агрессивного и все более сомнительного лидерства Тома Делея, наиболее важного Республиканца в настоящее время. Если Демократы и Республиканцы позволят их умеренным лидерам сотрудничать, многие из самых неотложных проблем страны решатся.

В заключении хотелось бы сказать, что когда Российские политики обращаются к опыту США и пытаются что-то перенять в частности вопрос об усилении роли партии в общественной жизни, хотелось чтобы они это делали учитывая наши ошибки.

onion, haircut & a free wednesday morning

2005-04-13T11:41:00.000+04:00

first and foremost, the onion. you should be reading it weekly, but if you're not this is a good week to start. headlines include:

Pope John Paul II, Longtime Owner Of Popemobile, Dead At 84
Heaven Less Opulent Than Vatican, Reports Disappointed Pope
Cost Of Living Now Outweighs Benefits
French's Introduces Antibacterial Mustard

and so forth.

so i'd last cut my hair back in august, and it had gotten to that point where my golden locks were impeding my vision. russia, more than most places i've been to, is a good place to have unimpeded vision. and so it was time to cut the hair. i've gotten in the habit of cutting my hair once or twice a year, and cutting it all off, usually doing it myself. granted it's a long experiment, but if you've never given it a shot:

just let your hair grow. it's not like you enjoy going to that crappy hair salon, and all the good barbers are dead. you're going to have to pay someone to cut your hair in a way that you don't like, and for a really nominal investment in a pair of clippers you can do it yourself. it's actually a really liberating/cathartic feeling to stand in front of the mirror and cut your own hair. think royal tenenbaums, only don't slit your wrists at the end. or if you do, get better like he does.

anyway, the point of the story is that my clippers didn't make the packing list, and there was no way i could hold out for another two months to do the cut at home. so i set out around the center looking for a barber, to no avail. and then i dropped in at a few other places, but i was turned away with infinite disdain by girls, who apparently have their next three months of appointments booked. knowing that i wasn't the sort of celebrity clientele that these (literally) back alley haircutters were used to, i headed for the only other place i'd seen around - Ruslan & Ludmila's.

Ruslan & Ludmila is located on pl. volkova, right before ul. kirova, and for those traveling to yaroslavl' for more than half a year, this would be a good place to get your hair cut before you go. it's a мужская парикмахерская, which is to say a salon-y sort of place that only men go to. you'll need a certain courage, not because you're in any real danger of getting a bad haircut - everyone seemed to leave smiling. which reminds me, this monster of a guy with a completely shaved head came in right after i did and walked right into the main part of the salon. i was waiting patiently in line in the little entry way, with a few other pretty young guys. this guy was completely decked out in new russian finery, and i was already sort of eying out escape routes, as this looked like a classic movie hit job. one of the women inside laughed at him and asked him if he was in for another hair cut or something. it turned out they 'missed a spot.' and he left without incident.

but courage. you're probably not going to see any mob hits, but you'll definitely see some mob characters. you'll also see scissors flutter around your head and ears like completely mad silver butterflies. the best thing for this is to pretend you have hair in your eyes and keep them closed. or if you're really cool, make like you're sleeping. this won't work if you're grimacing and clenching the stool handles. also don't try to explain what you want in any great detail. a few gestures, maybe, and when she says "oh so you want the sport cut," just say probably, and let her do it. also another quick word of warning - if you're getting the sport cut and at the end she goes to put some guck on her hands (which i thought was some sort of hand soap or something) protest loudly. you really don't want that crap in your hair.

so that was yesterday evening, and my haircut passed without incident. today is wednesday morning, and on any other wednesday morning i would be sitting in on a 3 hour lecture about the history of southern and eastern slavs. i got to the university out of breath this morning, and took my usual seat toward the back of the classroom. a few of the girls turned around to make small chat, and told me, by the way, this isn't the slavs class today. that professor's at a conference. but, uhm, you can stick around if you want to hear about the history of the yaroslavl region.

the last word might have been region, i'm not really sure. i was already redressing and shaking hands and wishing everyone a good morning. i don't remember descending the three flights of stairs, but in an instant i was back out on the street, and after another few handshakes with the last minute cigarette smokers, i was walking down the street a free man. the weather here is wonderful. there is an army of grandmothers with those old fashioned stick brooms that you thought only exist in antique stores sweeping up a winter's worth of candy wrappers, kefir cartons and cigarette butts. an army of grandfathers has already collected the bottles. and i think i'm going to go take a walk. if the weather isn't as great wherever you might happen to be, you know what to do

tales from the kitchen, rats, etc

2005-04-04T22:25:00.000+04:00

so i learned how to make оладьи, which are little fried pancake things, and one of the better things that's ever come out of a russian kitchen. up there with fried bread, if you've been reading along. the recipe, again, is not precise. dump some kefir (ie soured milk, as nearly as i understand it) in a bowl. then dump flower, an egg, some salt, some sugar and some baking soda in. proportions here - ни при чем. wing it. if there's anything lying around, you can dump that in too. then stir it up and fry it in oil. if you burn them, do what my host mom does. call them "gypsies" and "dogs." she really likes gypsies though, so i don't really understand the mentality. she watches some russian/gypsy soap opera religiously, and to a point where i already have a passive understanding of the plot. from, for example, sticking my head in the living room to say i'm going. or my head in the kitchen in the morning to say i'm going.

what else. there was something else from the kitchen. oh yeah. my host mom recently made me a soup. she got me to eat about half of it, and then asked me how it was. it was ok, and i told her it was good. so far, nothing new. then she started to tell me about the ingredients. beans, vegetables etc etc. and four types of kilbasa. oh, wait just kidding! three types of kilbasa and one type of tongue.

i'd never made it known to her that i'd rather not eat anything's tongue, but some things go unspoken. as a feller says. anyway it was too late to protest and i finished the tongue soup. there's something to be said for vegetarian's in that blank refusals to eat meat things is a good defense against unfortunate body parts ending up in your chow.

i guess the rats is a pretty quick story too. it's spring and rats are showing up. to eat the garbage that's melting into view. i saw one (for the first time) on the first floor of my building, and one (for the second time) in the hole. in the past few days. i also recently read that rats can laugh. and that prairie dogs talk and magic scorpions dance in parisian bath tubs.

i just don't know

oh, and for the record, go ahead and mourn the pope, but take a minute to think about the people dying of HIV/AIDS in Africa and starving in Latin America because the catholic church told them using condoms is a sin. i'm sorry dear readers, but that's a tough one to forgive the favorite father. the catholic church should be looking out for its faithful.

spring.

2005-03-27T21:58:00.000+04:00

the new york times gets a big high five for reminding me that it's spring. clocks set forward, stories about minority christians celebrating easter in far off places...at least three stories about people being kept alive by god's good will and respirators. kind of cuts the theme a little, but i guess it's news.

and even the hole is in a state of revival - last night they had their first party in a month. wish you could have been there flash, it was a good one. you'd think after all the noise problems zhenya and sergei wouldn't choose 11 pm for hammering nails into the concrete. shrug. all the pictures are on zhenya's camera, but they'll probably find their way here at some point.

winter here is in its death throes. we've gotten a lot of snow lately, although it's been relatively warm. spring in yaroslavl is a period of involuntary sport, for the young and old. i've spent my time pretty evenly between swimming and skating as the city melts and refreezes. standing long jump comes in a close second. for some reason the city's drainage systems never really seem to work, and so several key points on my route between home and the university are under water. or under that layer of frozen slush that you might be able to walk across, but you'll only find out for sure once you're in the middle. russia's courteous drivers haven't managed to hit me with any mud yet, but it's not like they're not trying.

the best part is just trying to get around on the sidewalks. a lot of them are just roped off altogether because of the huge snow/ice slides off the roofs. so you're either walking through a foot and a half of snow on the side of the road or trying to keep your balance on the sidewalk while listening for falling snow/ice. i never really thought falling snow or ice would be a real problem, but twice in the past two days i've missed being hit by seconds. and these are soccer-ball sized chunks of ice, once they've broken all over the pavement. (also, while we're on the topic(s), consider this my living will or whatever - i don't want to be kept alive on life support. should i be crushed by ice or anything else falling from the sky.)

and on top of that, you need to watch out for assertive and experienced grandmothers, who like it or not, are getting where they're going much faster than you are.

old holidays

2005-03-17T21:44:00.000+03:00

This past sunday was масленица (maslenitza), which is an old russian holiday that dates back to pagan times. maslenitza is when every woman in russia makes more bliny than all the men in her family can eat. it marks the start of a fast where you're not supposed to eat butter or fat. i think there are other things that must not be eaten, but no one seems too concerned about it. russia has kept maslenitza, like every other holiday it has ever celebrated, and because it falls around easter every year there are a lot of people who seem to think it's actually an orthodox church holiday.

and so maslenitza in reality. in provincial russia. it wasn't quite like that movie with the american in russia and the carnival, the drunk bear, the glasses of vodka, the fire and the dancing napoleon. nonetheless, that description catches the atmosphere. the entire city poured into the central square to eat bliny prepared by the local government officials (they were hoping to get back in touch with the people whose social benefits they just knocked through the floor). sovetskaya ploshad' was packed, and i didn't even try to get in. i agreed to meet poet on the square near my house, and at that very moment a pack of comrades from the hole was passing through, a few of whom had very visibly been celebrating since yesterday evening. we wandered around the city for a good half an hour, trying to find a store that was empty enough to enter. and then we wandered some more. the days are growing longer here.

and then today is saint patricks day. needless to say, not a traditional russian holiday, but if the stereotypes about the irish are worth a damn, i've found their brothers in russia. the ritzy new hotel in yaroslavl has a very expensive, but very nice 'irish pub,' complete with guiness and kilkenny - a natural spot for the occasion. we dropped in last night, and they had boated in irish musicians and were teaching russian girls in vaguely irish costumes to do vaguely irish dances. i guess tonight is probably going to be the real party, but at 7 euros, the pint of guiness is a little out of my league. and since my closest tie to ireland is living not far from boston, i can't really call it my holiday either.

and an amusing thing at my internship today. i don't know if i mentioned my internship yet, but i'm working at the international investment center, which, among other things, is working on a new website. their main aim, as far as i can tell, is saving the world from yaroslavl oblast' out. but the concrete projects are supporting democratic political candidates, attracting and advising foreign investors, and bunches of humanitarian/social projects (banning landmines, women's political activism, children's drawing contests...). And so i'm there about 20 hours a week doing my part with really wonderful people. today the director, olga vladimirovna, brought me a jar of her friend's bees' honey because i've had a bit of a cold this week. and real honey is wonderful.

and then kind of a funny story, which i hope they'll forgive me for sharing. they had a meeting the other day with someone, who dropped into yaroslavl unexpectedly from the american embassy. they were all set and on their way out when they realized they didn't have a business card to give him. andrei ivanovich came in all red-faced and laughing, and explained for about two minutes about how they had this meeting, and they were hoping to give the guy a business card because they'd like to stay in touch with him, etc etc. and so i was sitting and listening to him, and smiling because he was obviously very excited to be meeting this individual, and i was starting to wonder why he was telling me about the meeting with his coat on and olga vladimirovna waiting at the door. and then he asked me if i still had their business card, and whether i wouldn't mind letting them have it back.

it was all the funnier because he was obviously really embarrassed that they hadn't printed new business cards lately (the one i got had a few handwritten corrections and bent corners). so i of course gave them the one i had, and they were all set out the door again, when he came back in and gave it back. he said something about how he'd like me to have it, and that olga vladimirovna would give him her card.

at which point i'm having a really hard time not laughing. but it's that sort of an organization. they work 7 days a week, and 10 hour days. often longer. it has a sort of encyclopedia brown feel, actually. only half the time they won't even take the 25 cents. they just work on everything that comes in front of them, and miraculously seem to get a lot of it done. it's been a great experience for me on a lot of fronts, not least in a personal way. i've been translating a lot of economic and polytechnic things lately. i know how to say non-ferrous metals. i didn't really even remember what they were. just that it sounds irony.

the weather's whispering

2005-03-12T19:17:00.000+03:00

it's still blustery and snowy here, but gradually growing warmer. the sidewalks are more often that thick would-be-slush snow, and huge blocks of ice are falling off rooftops everywhere. a few weeks ago someone parked a small russian car on the sidewalk for a few minutes and came back to find it nearly split down the middle from a snow/ice slide. or that's what they're whispering.

my host mom has been consulting with me lately on which tv-advertised products she should by. this morning she confessed to buying some milkshake sort of thing that is advertised to increase your beauty from inside. the ad features 20 year old girls in tight clothes, kind of prancing around and being really beautiful from the inside. i was reading the already empty carton this morning, until she took it away from me for laughing. among the claims that i had time to read were "the only product designed specifically for women" and "improving your beauty from the inside," but there was a whole list of bullet points i didn't get to. she confessed that it actually just taded like kefir, only with a funny color. and more expensive. and i think she might have hit the head on the nail.

the saddest thing about new markets in russia is that you can actually do that. just rebottle, say, milk, and sell it as a cure for wrinkles or something. and literally millions of pensioners are sitting around their televisions all day admiring the actresses on brazilian soap operas. enter the advertiser. she also wanted to know if some kind of magic wand ion clothes cleaning gadget was worth $100 or some ridiculous sum. it's a lot like that robin williams joke in his live on broadway HBO special....where he's talking about the weight loss thing that you strap to your abs and shocks the fat away....i will not...buy...stupid shit!

but you can sell it here, and make your million.

and her son and daughter in moscow tell her not to buy these things, and i did at first too. but i'm starting to realize that's not even really the point. except for the hundred dollar ionic laundry wand. i'm sticking to my guns on that one. but there's no real point in arguing against weight loss tea in a diet that sees a few pounds of mayo weekly. and it's kind of nice that she gets hopeful again and again after each new ad and each new...thing.

or, i don't know

2005-03-08T20:42:00.000+03:00

now yahoo news has posted a story about international women's day. the point was that in russia it's not just a little subscript note on your puppies wall calendar.

international womens day

2005-03-08T19:11:00.000+03:00

today, march 8th, is international womens day, likely much to your surprise. although the holiday has its roots in america at the turn of the century, it really only gained international momentum after a few of lenin's girlfriends convinced him to make it a national soviet holiday. in as much as those dastardly commies (who, by the way, extended full suffrage to women two years before the united states and most of western europe at the federal level) beat us to making it an official holiday, enthusiasm dropped off in the america.

i don't really know how widely it's celebrated in the rest of the world, but i get the sense that it's more an ex-soviet holiday that an international holiday, if not in formal status, in actuality. this year it fell on a tuesday, which by old russian tradition, mandated making saturday a (nominally) official working day and giving everyone sunday, monday and tuesday off. another old russian tradition mandates not going to work on nominally official working saturdays, so most people here, at least in the provinces (the глубина, as yaroslavl was described to me recently) had a nice four-day weekend.

this blog's recurring theme seems to be that russians are never really short on holidays, and always looking for new ones. they have even started to pick up st. valentines day over the past few years, despite the pissing fury of the russian orthodox church. i wouldn't be surprised to see fireworks in yaroslavl on july 4th either.

mormons

2005-02-25T12:26:00.000+03:00

are in yaroslavl. i've been asked twice in the past week whether i'm a mormon. no, i'm not. nor am i here, courting a russian mail order bride, thank you.

you might wonder why americans have a bad reputation in the world, if you didn't have to meet all the americans abroad. i don't think i've written yet about my acquaintance from nevada, who is over here living with this girl he met through an online porn-chat. who constantly talks about how much he loves her, but how he's worried she's going to get fat on him. he's actually looking for a gym with treadmills so he can "work her out." he said that. and how he hates her language and family and culture and country and friends and religion and cooking. there were other things he hates. and how he got all ripped on steroids and spent a week in tanning booths before he came over. meh. i don't really have the energy to describe him in full today. maureen dowd would have laid an egg. these people really stick out because they don't speak the language and they're not even making an effort, and so russians in provincial yaroslavl, not having met many americans, assume that people from vegas are typical americans.

and then there's the head boob, our dear commander in chief. let me put this whole glove story in context, as i'm guessing the slovakian tradition doesn't fall too far from the russian one.

russian men shake hands all the time, and a lot of times they'll shake hands in passing without a verbal greeting. and regardless of how cold it is outside, they always take a glove off before shaking hands. the embarrassing thing about this bush story is that they were probably all wearing gloves, and probably all took their gloves off in front of bush, just before shaking his hand. and he just didn't notice. you'd think that bush would have realized there's something a little improper about shaking women's bare hands wearing a glove?

i don't really know if it just seems obvious to me because i've been living here for a while, or if it really is just common sense. i can't help thinking it's the latter.

st. valentines @ the hole

2005-02-16T15:03:00.000+03:00

День Всех Влюбленных/Святого Валентина.

Monday evening we celebrated valentines day at the hole. interestingly enough, russians were all really discouraged to hear that americans celebrate it with their lovers/spouses/lovers' spouses and not with friends. in any event, the russian version is better than ours for singles. the guys decorated a box and collected valentines and people seemed to be leaving in pairs, so i guess it all worked out well enough.

as usual, a few of the better pictures.

miscellaneous good things

2005-02-07T02:24:00.001+03:00

first and foremost, zhenya zhdan has earned this week's high five for saying "Я ужас, летящий на крылях ночи!" which apparently is how russians traslated darkwing duck's immortal cry, "I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the winged scourge that pecks at your nightmares. I am... Darkwing Duck!"

and then there is the song he just copied for me - a couple drunk russians with an accordion bawling the titanic theme song (mostly in key). if i find somewhere to post it, i'll put a link up. or i can just email it, if anyone can see how that would be funny.

and so it's about time for kick off. i'm rooting for the patriots and refreshing yahoo sports at fifteen second intervals. also i'm supposed to go and look for classes tomorrow, but i've this sneaking suspicion that after the all nighter in net zone i'm going to have other priorities. and apparently the new americans have landed in yaroslavl....no one from middlebury, so i'm kind of interested to see what they're like. also, danny if you're still reading, everyone has been asking for you and wondering when you're coming back. katya was really decked out at the hole last night....so to hell with your asia plans, you've got unfinished business in yaroslavl.

...still kicking around

2005-01-31T01:37:00.000+03:00

i've still a week left of vacation here in yaroslavl, and i'm enjoying every moment of it. i've been going to this really soviet-era gym and working out with a couple of my friends lately, which has been great. the gym will merit its own post a little later when i get around to taking some pictures. and i've been rereading things that i struggled through last summer at russian camp, which is a really good feeling.

the superbowl will be starting for my would-be first day of classes, so i think i might take a sick day on the first monday of the new semester. since i missed the first 6 weeks of my "mainstream" university course last semester, i think i should be able to catch up all right. also, i was wandering around with sergei last night looking for a store open at midnight near the second net zone building, when i accidently discovered the church that i gave my architecture presentation on. i'd been looking for it for a while, and then there it was.

i actually missed a lot of good pictures - i've gotten lazy about carrying the camera around with me all the time. picture of the evening would have been sergei & zhenya singing "elechka" at 3 am on top of this giant mushroom looking thing in the playground on ploshchad' yunosti. also an impromptu match of 'tzar of the mountain' on a snowbank near the hole. yes, they actually call it 'tzar of the mountain.' and to think that we had so much in common after all....

vacation

2005-01-21T22:01:00.000+03:00

rolls on. the best news is that i just got a package from uncle john/ivan with 8 rolls of duct tape, a usb drive and a web cam (and assorted other things - he listed it on the packing slip as 'humanitarian aid') so that was pretty spectacular. i'm thinking about making either a hammock or a fire escape ladder with the duct tape, i haven't really decided yet.

cast your votes.

happy old new years

2005-01-14T02:47:00.000+03:00

from my lookout in the highest building of central yaroslavl, i watched as drunk russians set off fireworks in the streets all over the center in celebration of the old new year. and then i said to myself, i forgot to tell everyone about that time i went to moscow a few days ago.

my friends' band was invited to play at a "premier" "famous" "prestigious" "wicked cool" (roughly from the original) rock club in MOSCOW. Moscow, the capital of all Russia, Russians' capital of the whole world. i didn't realize what a big deal this was until later, when i heard them talking about their first performance in moscow and how their name was getting around in MOSCOW etc etc. and sorry guys, if you're reading this - america's getting the straight story.

anyway i was invited along as the manager/roadie/groupie since no one else felt like forking up money to pay for the one day trip. it turned out to be not terribly expensive by american standards for a 4 hour trip each way. about 800 roubles for the whole thing. that turns into bucks when divided by 28 or so. that's there and back, free entrance into this hot spot, this place of all rock places in moscow (my name was on the list. i personally wrote my name onto the list.), a few overpriced beers at the bar and micky d's on the way back. and actually i bought a hamburger and pepsi for the driver too. we had a cool driver.

we rented a little van (6 passengers - 2 in front & 4 in the back) and brought along 5, me and the band. the ride up was pretty calm as the guys in the band were all a little jittery about their first big show in the capital. we got into moscow a few hours before the show and drove around the city for a while, looking for the club. our driver got out at regular intervals as we got closer and closer, asking for directions; after the last stop he turned onto a tram line and drove the wrong way (in his van) up what amounted to low-speed train tracks. well, needless to say a train came along, as they happen to, but there was plenty of room to swerve out of the way and no one was even injured.

the rock club turned out to be a heavy metal club, and (for those of you in yaroslavl) was sort of reminiscent of a really crappy Партизан with way worse music and guys with pony tails. incidentally, the only people at the club were the bartender, a few bouncers, the 'musicians' in the 5 bands that were playing and their girlfriends/younger brothers. everyone assured us that it was a wicked popular club, and everyone was just, uhm, out celebrating...and things. my friends were on the docket as the last show, and after seeing the club they all had a good laugh and felt a lot more relaxed, if not better. and went out looking for a store.

their band, Утопия, had a good show and was wildly applauded by the handful remaining in the club. the music fell somewhere between nirvana and blink 182, thankfully closer to the former. i took a couple pictures.

new years!

2005-01-09T21:56:00.000+03:00

as we're approaching the middle of january already, i felt like i should mention how i spent my new years eve. i guess i should start by explaining 'the holiday season' in russia, for those of you who aren't familiar with it. The big holiday is New Years, which Russia celebrates with the rest of the world. The trick is, that they start celebrating (ie drinking) at our Christmas, December 25, and don't really stop until "Old New Years" on January 13-4. The Russian Orthodox Church still celebrates Christmas by the old calendar, so Russia's Christmas falls on the 7th. "Old New Years" is when New Years was 300 years ago before Peter the Great westernized the calendar, and everyone but the church got their belt buckles on straight. And Russians love telling you about how crazy they are because they still celebrate "old new years." seriously, you won't even have to ask, they'll come up to you and tell you and watch you for some significant reaction. and really it is pretty nuts.

So that's more or less the holiday season. Banks in Yaroslavl were closed on Monday the 3rd because it was a 'holiday.' And actually most of them are still closed. The big bank on my street is closed until the 11th. This year the weekends more or less lined up with the little gaps between the 'holidays' and the nights before and after the holidays so everyone just threw their hands up in the air and headed for liquor stores.

I spent New Years Eve proper at my friend's dacha in Androniki, a little village about 30 minutes north of Yaroslavl. I went out with the first group (about 10 people i think) in a little van we rented, and another 8 or so came in private cars later once we'd gotten the stove heated up. Andrei and I had been planning on trying to get out earlier to heat up the stove in the morning because it wasn't until about 9 or 10 that we couldn't see our breath inside. Fortunately it wasn't that cold and no one froze to death or anything. We brought a lot of food and things with us, so the girls made salads and cooked a chicken in honor of the rooster while the guys, well, sat around and/or started drinking. i helped shovel the driveway with a bucket so the girls coming later wouldn't have to trek in through a foot of snow in the dark. so i guess i did my part.

and so then new years. sitting around the table, eating, drinking, singing and dancing. i'm sure there was probably dancing, but i don't have pictures of that. the company and atmosphere were incredible. new years in the russian countryside is going to be tough to beat. the pictures catch the mood better than i will. zhenya zhdan and i took about 100 pictures each, and between us there were a few good ones. so i don't know, i'm posting them more for people in yaroslavl than for all y'all back home, but take a look if you want to see a real russian dacha and stove. and real russians on their favorite night of the year.

morning, needless to say, was a little more mellow, if not sober. most people woke up at intervals during the late morning and picked at the leftovers on the table and went back to sleep. everyone was tired and sore from falling asleep, well, where ever they happened to be when they fell asleep. heads hurt. everyone was somehow cheery, all the same. the house was mostly in ruins, but it had gotten really warm and cozy. after we cleaned up everything we sat around for about an hour before someone realized that we would actually have to call taxis if they were going to come get us.

probably a hazy outline is the best way to leave it.

on the 2nd (after everyone had a chance to sleep a bit and recover), a second new years party was put together in the hole. that didn't end until around 8 in the morning, and that evening has already moved into legend as "the 2nd." i realize that was only a few days ago, but these have been really long days. and i've spent them all with the same handful of people. anyway flash if you're reading this, everyone was bummed you weren't here to celebrate it with us. send an email sometime if you want the x rated version and/or the photographs that aren't seeing the light of ofoto-day.

then we had a christmas party at the hole on the 6th-7th but that dwindled down pretty quickly when most of the girls left for midnight church services.

and the narod is already whispering about old new years, which is yet to come....

new years

2005-01-03T15:41:00.000+03:00

is wild. and here in northern russia, still underway. more soon.

2004-12-31T01:22:00.000+03:00

So we finally put the tree up. Somehow the assembly instructions and bolts didn't quite do it for me, but at least we've got something holiday-ish up in the apartment. i've been wearing a flashing santa hat to meals to cheer things up.

2004-12-27T01:54:00.000+03:00

i can't stop taking pictures of him.

happy birthday jesus!

2004-12-25T16:05:00.000+03:00

so this is christmas.

things are pretty quiet here since the russian orthodox church hasn't gotten around to accepting that they're 14 days off. the americans have pretty much all scattered for home/europe/etc and larisa is at work today so i'm going over to a friend's for dinner. my neighbor came over to show me her decorations since our apartment is looking pretty bleak. the good news is that it's been pretty cold, and the snow & wind seem appropriate. a lot of new years decorations are already up around the city, so things seem sort of holiday-ish.

we have new years, then christmas and then old new years coming up. people in russia celebrate old new years, too. and catholic christmas. because hey, why not? by the way, our (not-orthodox) christmas is called "catholic-christmas" in russia, as if the rest of the god loving world celebrates christmas in january. the most annoying thing is, that makes me a de facto catholic even though i was raised as a protestant and don't consider myself particularly religious.

last night (christmas eve) i went to the yaroslavl city jazz center, which was having a christmas eve party hosted by one of the local english teaching centers. the jazz club was obviously well funded and well organized, but not too authentic. the lights were on most of the night and the votive candles (allegedly) set off the fire alarm for about 15 minutes.

i can't really say that i've been to a lot of jazz clubs, but i feel like bright lights and prohibiting smoking aren't really a good start. there was a little sauna like closet downstairs where you could smoke. it was so uncomfortable in the smoking room that most people started to smoke their cigarettes outside, and then got too cold, put them out, and finished them in the smoking room. and then went back outside to get the smell of smoke and sweat out of their clothes.

suckers.

the band was all right - they played cheesy standards mostly, but they had a pretty good pianist. the music and ventilation system in the room made it feel like a really crowded elevator. i guess the band isn't from yaroslavl. no one really wanted to stay because we all turned out to be really underdressed and not terribly into the music. the director of the english center kept coming up to us and telling us to dance with all the nice girls because of all the really great jazz and all. and then she yelled at us for leaving early and not asking all the nice girls to dance. but yeah, we'll be back for your fortune telling party in january. sounds super. yep, we promise. the christmas eve party at the basement was considerably more entertaining, if less directly-christmas-related.

so this was supposed to be the cheery post, m. sorry. check back after new years - i'm already looking forward to it. dacha somewhere north of the city. it'll take a few hours for us to get the stove lit and the house warmed up. i like that.

nearing the end...

2004-12-18T16:44:00.000+03:00

so the semester is winding down and all of my middlebury classes have ended. on monday we're taking a walking tour of yaroslavl and individually talking about different churches to our architecture professor. i have to read about Церковь Николы Мокрого. Nicholas the wet? I guess it was built on a swamp. I still don't really know much about it yet, but that's coming. that's on the way.

Then tuesday we have our final exam after class, which will be an oral test of our knowledge of general russian architecture and then specific buildings. this should be really great. thanks to ashley we all have photocopies of a middle-schoolish architecture book with lots of pictures. it's a start anyway, since our notes from class are entirely incoherent.

and so that's the bad news. the good news is that after tuesday afternoon i am going to be enjoying yaroslavl' and russia and free free time. how are things back home? middlebury's probably just finishing up their exams this week right?

never a dull moment

2004-12-12T20:57:00.000+03:00

walking along ulitza kirova, evening, light snow & considering that tomorrow's a holiday for everyone but me, the people are out. a familiar scene. i had walked all of 5 steps past a group of 5 or 6 guys when one of them fired a damn handgun at the ground. i don't really know why. the good news is that i won't have to worry about nodding off anytime in the next few weeks.

currently holed up in netzone where the violence is almost exclusively animated. a few pictures from friday night's гулянка at the hole. and yeah. i have to start and finish a paper and hopefully find an hour or so to help zhenya celebrate his birthday before my grammar final at 9 am.

*inhale*

2004-12-12T04:06:00.000+03:00

russia.

substance abuse culture

2004-12-08T07:02:00.000+03:00

3:30ish am local time, and i'm mad dashing a paper on the lyrics of afanasy fet for 11 am (earlier if i want to do my grammar homework and get to class). needless to say, i'm looking for a buzz. that's right. caffeine. vitamin c. oh that's right, i went there. i had to wake up the girl behind the bar to get a cup of instant coffee, and i decided to order two (i think sobe - sobe is with the two lizards right?) of those little looks-like-red-bull energy drinks. the girl looked at me in complete amazement and said that that's impossible, impossible! you can't drink two of those at once!!!

i almost laughed at her, and at the huge amount of alcohol behind her that I could have been purchasing without a doubt in her mind at any hour of the day or night, and at the fact that the sugar can industry has done so well marketing their basically placebo effect juice in russia. anyway, staying awake i am.

now i actually am laughing at how much more work i have to do, and how i'm writing a blog entry and even thinking about answering an email....

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2004-12-07T01:58:00.000+03:00

every morning people shovel the snow off lenin and the big square around him and dump it in the road. they really do that.

end of the semester...

2004-12-07T01:52:00.000+03:00

so this is my conspicuous end-of-the-semester absence. i am alive and doing things in yaroslavl. some of them have been interesting. in about two weeks i'm going to be free of basically all obligations, and i am looking forward to that time. in the immediate (looming) future i have to start and finish a paper on the lyrics of afanasy fet. and then over the weekend a paper on the role of chess in russian culture. none of this would have been terribly hard, even in russian, if there were normal libraries in yaroslavl, but i still haven't gotten my two photographs taken so that i can plead for a 'reader's card' at the local library. that's not actually a library card, mind you - it's a card that lets you into the library so that you can find relevant books in a card catalog (remember? in america the cards are in little boxes next to the computers, with those stubby pencils so you can take notes). then you get to ask the librarian to find the books for you and you get to read them in an allegedly-not-even-that-comfortable reading room. if anyone remembers how i described buying groceries, you'll notice the pattern here.

so like a good sport, i didn't even bother to go to the library and i'm going to various other ends of yaroslavl to try and get around it. everyone else said it's an awful experience, even with help/direction from teachers. relying on the good old internet. all of my would-be sources for the fet paper are freely distributed 10th grade 'доклады.' but insightful ones, really, almost without exception. since student formulated surveys distributed to 9 host moms apparently count as valid research for the culture paper, i'm going to be a doing a little first hand investigating, too, in lieu of first hand reading books!

a few things

2004-12-02T15:55:00.000+03:00

first and foremost - a few new pictures. and a few small changes around the site... i killed a few old links and the banner for kerry/edwards. sorry kerry/edwards. i was never so much for you as i am against bush. i'm in the market for a good anti bush banner/button though, so leave some suggestions. or create your own! (?)

a few is 2, right?

well it's about 32 degrees farenheit here today, which is a treat from the 5 degrees yesterday. that means a layer of slush, but enough ice left to still slip and fall in the slush. so you'll get wet. on the various red thermometer clocks in yaroslavl that would look like 0 degrees and -15. that's the ol' celsius. the clock nearest my appartment is always about 3 degrees warmer than the other clocks around, which is lousy when it's really cold and i'm looking for some affirmation that it is, in fact -15 and not, say, -12. he's a big fat phooooooony. i guess it will probably get colder here in the next month or so. we'll see.

onion

2004-12-01T02:28:00.000+03:00

just go read the onion. a few new photos should be up tomorrow.

dial up

2004-11-29T17:20:00.000+03:00

i finally got around to buying internet cards/adapters/cords and all that, and i now have unreliable dial up internet access at my apartment. the good news is that it's not terribly expensive, and it's faster than the computers at the university. the bad news is that i can only use it in the middle of the night because our apartment has a shared phone line with the neighbors. i'm probably not going to end up using it much because i have to drag my computer out into the kitchen, and it takes forever to get a stable connection. the one good thing is that i can now post pictures directly to my blog instead of all the albums.

2004-11-29T01:13:00.000+03:00

ulitza kirova, during the first real snowfall

updates, english classes

2004-11-27T17:14:00.000+03:00

Today I bought internet/phone cards and the adapter that i think i need to connect to the internet from my laptop at home. Although the at-best 56 kb connection is going to be a bummer, the good news is that i'll be able to start posting pictures directly to my blog once in a while. In any event, it should be a lot faster than the connection at the university, and a lot more convenient than trekking to netzone or the recently-discovered internet library on my block. somehow i never really noticed it earlier, and when i did notice it i thought it was just a computer supplies store. and now for something completely different-

On friday Andrei invited me to help him give a test to his freshman english class, and had me write and dictate a little passage in english about my entirely fictional little sister. She is tall. She likes to play tennis. She speaks english in the present tense. etc. I was supposed to pretend that I didn't understand any russian, but i think some of the girls in the back figured me out because I smiled a few times when they were all speaking russian. Anyway they'll figure it out sooner or later because i'm taking a class in russian at the history department (where they study), and i made a narrow escape at avant garde last night.

After their test, Andrei also had me talk about myself, what I like to do, and all that, and then had them ask me questions. I never really realized how terribly i speak english until I started trying to speak slowly and intelligibly to a bunch of 1st year students. the one guy in the class (who apparently didn't speak a word of english) got one of the girls behind him to translate "do you like russian vodka?" for their part, the girls wanted to know if i had a girlfriend, and why not, and what's my ICQ number? In a week or two, I'm going to come to the second year class he teaches too.

While i'm on the subject, english textbooks for russians are really, really funny. Either stuffy old british people are writing them, or russians who were taught english by stuffy old british people are. And by old, i mean david copperfield old. when was the last time you heard anyone ask, have you a brother? have you a sister? So there's that sort of english, but then the text is about Mary Johnson who is a young beautiful long-legged actress in Hollywood with lots of boyfriends and 5 cars. To his credit, Andrei is teaching them to ask "do you have..." and basically more realistic english. Maybe i'll get him to loan me one of the books so I can share a few passages. Maybe i'll just leave you to dream!

mittens, kick the bottle, bowling (?)

2004-11-24T22:02:00.000+03:00

well i have about ten minutes left in the net zone, and i thought it was about time for a hasty dispatch to say that i'm alive and well. it's been around -15 C here in the mornings, so i decided it was finally time to buy a hat and some mittens. ashley and i went down to старый город, the local market, and we more or less found what we were looking for. i got some really cool mittens which are kind of dark brown leather on the outside and wool or something on the inside. they also have crazy seams all over them, and look sort of like boxing gloves. i like that.

that hat choice was maybe a little less fortunate - a mad-bomber style one (with the furry flap out front and the two ear flaps that you can pull down). anyway, it's a little silly looking (and not that i have anything against this style in general - i really like the better made ones), but warm as hell. i didn't have the heart to wear it to the movies today, fearing getting laughed out of the car, but my mittens went over well. saw a really awful american film at rodina - the whole thing was basically a big nokia advertisement. i think it's called cell phone, or something? anyway, yaroslavl' comrades - rodina is a pretty nice theatre, and definitely worth checking out if you're getting tired of Evropa. there's also a nice cafe for coffee.

and kick the bottle? well that's what an apparently unattended 3-ish year old is doing up and down kirova.

well, time's up here. more soon.

hmmm

2004-11-21T18:41:00.000+03:00

so it snows a lot here, now. it's looking like i'm probably going have to buy a hat soon. i'm probably going to hold off on strangling my own stray dog, like danny, and maybe just buy a knit cap. although i really do hate старый город....

it seems that my host mom has skipped out... i guess she's in moscow? i don't really know. she said she'd been planning on going to moscow, and she doesn't seem to be in yaroslavl'. the freezer is stuffed with bags of pilmeni, which i'm taking as a 'goodbye,' and 'i'll be back eventually, when the pilmeni run out.' anyway if anyone wants to drop by tonight, i'm going to 'fry' bread and maybe a potato. also maybe watch a movie.

so we're probably getting pretty close to the end of the semester, which means i probably will have a lot of work to do soon. as long as i'm not looking at a calendar, i can't be sure. as winter sets in, i'm growing less and less interested in fleeing to europe on vacation. i don't really know why, but everything here is suddenly starting to make a lot more sense, with the glaring exception of the umbrella question. russians are the most umbrella-carrying people i've ever seen, but as soon as it stops raining and starts snowing, they shelve the umbrellas until, well, june. i don't really see the difference. but i don't really carry an umbrella.

dylan

2004-11-17T21:02:00.000+03:00

rolling stone picked bob dylan's like a rolling stone as the greatest song of all time. i couldn't find the list on rolling stone's web page, but that's what AP news tells me. Thanks Yahoo!

anyway, i'm satisfied.

weekend, rodent acrobats, internship

2004-11-15T13:38:00.000+03:00

so there are these crazy marmot looking creatures that live in the trees in yaroslavl. i've spotted two of them already, one near the Volga and one in my would-be backyard. The one on the Volga leapt from one tree, fell about a story down, and just barely caught the last tiny branch on the adjacent tree, and then promptly ran back up and did it again. it was also running around from balcony to balcony and nearly falling to its death at every turn. what a champ. i'm not sure exactly what it was - it was running around like a squirrel, but it was more like a really long cat. maybe we have some zoologists out there? some animal-scientists?

what else. saturday evening we ran into friends at makmaster and ended up meeting some theatre students. if they were at all representative of russian theatre students in general, then they're of an almost identical mold as their american counterparts. i guess i might have expected it, had someone asked me to imagine a russian theatre student beforehand. but there you have it. anyway they had just moved into a new apartment, and the only furniture in the room was a table in the corner and two theatre chairs that had been pilfered at some point in their careers. i should add that their having just moved in probably doesn't have much to do with the furnishings. we showed up with friends of theirs at about 11 pm unexpected, and they were pretty much ready to go when we got there.

vodka, juice and bread all standing on the floor. glasses. everyone sitting around talking and laughing. cigarettes. guitar. singing. sasha frying bread in the kitchen. that's a sight in itself, by the way. a frying pan, oil, and bread. you flip the bread over with the biggest knife in the kitchen, for effect. i'm going to try it tonight at home for dinner. oleg invited us to paint with him on the kitchen wall, which is to say - decoratively. back in the other room - waxing profound on increasingly less serious topics. it was all picturesque, somehow. so hats off to oleg, marina and skhusha for the enjoyable evening.

anyway, if i weren't living at the moment in spitting distance of the north pole, it would have been getting light on the walk back home. larisa anatolievna made me drink a glass of wine when i woke up (at dinner), even though i insisted that i wasn't hung over and even though i wouldn't have wanted more alcohol had i been hung over. she was convinced i just didn't understand, and well, maybe i don't.

and what else. i finally sent off all my paperwork to apply for an internship in the spring. ideally i'll be working with a local political organization that supports yabloko and the union of right forces, but i have no idea whether that is going to pan out. the options weren't quite as exciting as the ones for students in moscow, but a few of the internships in yaroslavl sounded pretty interesting. getting involved with opposition parties in russia has been, at least historically, a good way to keep life interesting. so more on that later. i'm just glad to finally have the paperwork off my desk.

and now, off on errands.

moscow, roman, etc

2004-11-11T09:43:00.000+03:00

This is a pretty delayed post, but it was an interesting trip so, here goes. Oh, and I almost forgot about the pictures.... Well, they're posted.

I left Yaroslavl' on a pretty cozy express train for Moscow on Tuesday afternoon, and got in at Yaroslavl' Glavnii Vokzal around 8:30 or 9 pm. I had the good fortune of riding with a talkative gent to my left and an empty seat to my right. My neighbor was a psychologist, who was returning from a business trip to Yaroslavl', and we talked for the full four hour ride. Despite my protests, he bought me a pepsi, chocolate, ice cream and coffee. I feel like there might have been something else too, but I don't really remember. Anyway, we had an all right conversation and he invited me out to dinner at the end of the month, when he's going to be back in Yaroslavl' for a few days. Toward the end of the trip, I asked him what I should pick up at the station to bring Roman and his mother (Mom - I gave her the last of the candles, and she loved them). I had already picked up a nice bottle of Georgian wine, and he suggested either flowers or some candy, which seemed reasonable. Then he asked me whether I had enough money to buy something, and proceeded to try to give me money for a good 5 minutes. For whatever reason, he didn't seem to believe that I had the money - I guess because some traveling Russian students probably wouldn't. Anyway, I eventually convinced him that I didn't need any money, thanked him for the company and snacks, and we agreed to have dinner sometime around the end of the month. Interesting people all over this place.

Roman was waiting for me at the station when my train came in, and we headed back to his apartment on the metro. Roman's mom, who has secured a permanent spot somewhere in my list of top 5 moms ever, had dinner waiting for us when we arrived. She had arranged to stay with her sister (I think) somewhere in Moscow and was leaving the apartment to Roman for the week, which they hadn't told me. I didn't really want to displace anyone... but roman assured me that it was all right, etc etc. Anyway, we ate and talked for a while, and went to bed early.

Wednesday morning, we set out for the Tretyakovskaya Galereya (Третьяковская Галерея), which is one of Russia's three, or so, really major art museums. Admission is free for Russian students, and since I had a Yaroslavl' student ID Roman was able to pick up both our tickets and get me in free. So, that saved me about $10, part of which I spent a nifty little book of "masterpieces of the gallery." The Tretyakovskaya has only Russian works, pre-20th century, and the most important collection of Russian icons. I have to admit that I don't really have an eye for icons, although they are fairly interesting. I don't know how many of these I’ll be able to find pictures for, but I’ll give it a go, and you can have a best of the Tretyakovskaya, Internet tour. I think probably the earliest painting that caught my eye was the apparently little-known Портрет Марии Ивановы Лопухиной by V.L. Borovikovskii (Боровиковский). It was the only early portrait that really seemed to hit a nail. And with she as the notable exception, I really don't understand how the girls running around Moscow today can be even remotely related to the mugs that were fit to paint 300 years ago. So, now you know what to say the next time someone tells you that Russia is stagnating.

Other favorites (with somewhat less rambling...): Явление Христа народу by A.A. Ivanov (this painting is 5.4 meters by 7.5 meters. Roman said that Ivanov worked on it for about 27 years. It would have taken me 10, tops, but who really has the time? See if you can find the artistic inconsistency. (Blue's clue: it has to do with colors!)

Probably my favorite painting was K.D. Flavitzkii's (Флавицкий) Княжна Тараканова, which was also huge (2.45 meters by 1.9 meters). It’s a painting of the Tsaritza Tarakanova, who was the last by-blood Russian heir to the monarchy. The nasty Germans, who had infiltrated the Russian royal bloodline, imprisoned her, and she died 5 years later. I'm not taking any responsibility for inaccuracies here, I'm just repeating what I remember of Roman's annotations, and creatively filling in the gaps.

А.К. Саврасов. Грачи прилетели - A classic Russian landscape. Also really liked one of Roman's favorites, И.И. Левитан - Над вечным покоем. That's, Levitan's "In Eternal Peace." Considering what I saw in the rest of the gallery, it's not hard to imagine why it captures a Russian’s imagination. И.Е. Репин - Иван Грозный и сын его Иван 16 ноября 1581 года. - Ivan the Terrible, just after killing his son with a giant stick. I don't know, he looks sorry, so he couldn't have been entirely грозный. It's always a bummer to kill the first son and heir to the throne.

I guess I was kind of a sucker for the historical ones...I also really liked V.I. Surikov's (Суриков) Утро стрелецкой казни, which is a picture of Peter the Great watching executions in Red Square. That's Pete, with the crazy eyes on the horse! You read about this stuff, and you visit Red Square and see where it all happened, but somehow seeing it all painted...

I also really liked what I saw of M.A. Vrubel's (Врубель) work, even though "Demon," his most famous work, was out at an exhibition somewhere.

In the evening, we gathered with Hunter, Bren and Tanya at Tanya's grandparents’ apartment, drank a few bottles of wine, swore about the election, ordered pizza and watched Буммер. Although none of it really made us feel much better, it was about as good as a night could have been under the circumstances.

I spent a good part of Thursday reading about the election and the homophobes who managed to protect marriage in another 10 states. Then Roman drove me around a bit to see the inside of Новодевичьий Монастырь and we went to see Коломенское, which unfortunately was barely visible because of restoration work.

In the evening, Roman and Tanya took me out bowling with some of their friends, and I came back from a dismal 60-something the first game to roll 100 (!!!) in the second. So help me, I will learn how to bowl. We stayed at the bowling club for about an hour, and headed out to walk around a bit. 'Strolling,' I guess it would be. Actually before we went bowling, Roman took me to this audio/video type mall, where it's now legal to sell unlicensed software/movies/music etc. I found Lebowski in Russian (with Happy Gilmore on the other side of the DVD), and left with a smile on my face. It was one of those kind of bittersweet smiles though, because of happy gilmore.

As it turns out, Lebowski is an important part of the story because after bowling, Roman and I went back to his apartment and watched it. Needless to say, a lot of the subtleties were lost in translation, but overall it was remarkably well done. The translation was very good, the dubbing was excellent (if you've seen American movies in Russia, you know this is already a small miracle), and it has both the original English audio, the Russian audio, and optional English or Russian subtitles. So it's almost like a real DVD, and it says that it's multi-region, so who knows. Maybe it'll play in the players back home. They even did a good job finding actors whose voices sounded like the originals'. The Stranger's opening dialogue was especially well done. So yeah. If you want to watch it with me sometime, you won't have to ask twice.

Friday morning we went to the Kremlin and stood in line for two hours to try to get in. We ended up getting tickets for the Armory, but we couldn’t get into the Алмазный Фонд or the Kremlin territory. The Armory has a lot of the Tsars’ thrones, jewels, costumes, coaches, Faberge eggs, and you guessed it - guns. Armor. The weapons. I took a lot of pictures, but nothing really turned out that well because most everything was behind glass. Anyway, it turned out that we would have had to stand in a different line to get into the actual Kremlin to wander around, which is what we originally wanted to do. By the time we found that out, it was too late to get the tickets we needed, so we ended up just checking out the armory and watching the FSB cars and government limos drive in and out. The vast majority of the FSB cars have plates with the letters ЕКХ, which roman told me is an abbreviation for Еду куда хочу, "I drive where I want." It seemed plausible, and less vulgar than the other possible alternatives. So next time you think that creepy black Benz is following you around Moscow, you won't be paranoid. You’ll be right!

That night, we went with Tanya and Hunter to tiny basement rock club, Китайский Летчик, where the club's owner and his band were playing a show. I don't remember what the group was called, but they were good and the atmosphere was great. The show ended a little before one, so everyone could clear out and get on the subway before it closed. Hmm.

Saturday afternoon we drove to the outskirts of Moscow and found a big open field. The time had finally come for roman to test launch his model airplane, after four months of painstaking model airplane making. We tried four launches, none of which was successful, and on the fourth (my failed attempt) the plane got somewhat higher (it flew straight up), only to come swooping down and nearly break all over the place! Fortunately, nothing too serious happened, and by evening roman had more or less repaired the damage. Roman's mom returned in the evening and cooked us dinner, and we ended up spending the evening with a bunch of roman's friends from high school. It was a good time.

For whatever reason, we set out again Sunday, which just happened to be November 7, to try and get into the Kremlin. I only remembered that it was Revolution Day (or now, the day or reconciliation, I think it's called), and the Communists had already reserved downtown Moscow for the festivities. Roman thought we should head on over there anyway, and maybe try to get into the Kremlin. Naturally, we didn't infiltrate the Kremlin, or even get out of the metro station. The whole center of town was locked down with troops and police, and since the parading was at least a few hours off, we called it a good walk and headed home.

And so, that's about it. I had a relatively uneventful train ride home, although unfortunately it was a good hour longer than it should have been. Plus the police on the train decided to try to get some money out of me by hassling me about my documents. Anyway, as usual, everything was in order and they were trying to convince me that I needed a signed and stamped itinerary of my travel, blah blah, which hasn't been necessary in about 7 years. They invited me to the front of the train for a seat in their little police cabin, and the chief fellow looked over my papers while the two cops kept telling me about all the huge $150 ("roughly, if we calculated it into dollars”) fines for traveling without a damn itinerary. Anyway, their captain turned out to be an all right guy, and he let me go, despite their protestations (but he's an American!) So, thanks Middlebury. It's the second time adequate Russian has saved me from getting robbed by cops!

back from moscow

2004-11-09T16:41:00.000+03:00

oh, how i have been neglecting the ol' blog. i'm back from moscow, and in short, i had a great time. pictures and stories will be up soon, maybe even tonight. (!!!) yeah.

what's next.

2004-11-03T16:59:00.000+03:00

so i really didn't think it was possible. america's voted, and it'll get what it has coming. congratulations.

so here are maybe the few points of consolation that i've managed to scrape together.

4 more years. Well there you go guys, 4 more big ones. Super. The Bush Administration is finally going to have to answer for what it's done. If Kerry had won, we'd still have had a crappy four years ahead of us, and Kerry would have had nothing in particular to differentiate himself from Bush. Kerry would have gone down with Bush's ship - this way, there's no dodging the responsibility. It's a loser's consolation, i know we're losing the supreme court, i know we're losing a lot, but at least we'll have something to keep fighting. And I don't know, I guess I didn't really expect to see Daschle go. Even with the losses in the Congress, I'm holding out hope that the moderate Republicans are going to start breaking with the administration when they see that the all around (and particularly fiscal) policy irresponsibility is not sustainable. Support for all of this is going to fall out soon, and I don't know where it will start. Probably not the nascar dads. But no matter who won the election, there's no getting around the fact that the first four years of Bush were bad ones. Not everyone knows it yet, but it won't take history to vindicate us. I guess more than anything, what's keeping me going is knowing that the Bush administration is going to be on the defensive. They'll have to be. There will be banter of a mandate or whatever for a few weeks, and then what? Triuphantly and stubornly soldiering on?

So that's all that's left. Challenge the vote in Ohio, i guess. It doesn't look real promising. We've got another four years, and if we fight tooth and nail like we fought for the election, we'll get through them somehow. I guess i'm just really bitter, and my friends are waiting to take me out and show me moscow. I'm not going to proofread or regularize my capitalization. Or look for coherency or even relevance. not even going to speel check. I'm going to go get really disengaged from everything around me about a week, and then think about what's next. Good luck to the rest of you.

off to moscow

2004-11-02T14:16:00.000+03:00

i'm heading out for moscow this afternoon, and i should be back in yaroslavl' late sunday. my stomach's in my throat. do the right thing, america. the world's watching.

happy halloween

2004-10-31T20:03:00.000+03:00

i'm celebrating from net zone with a crappy russian candy bar, and techno/porn/counter strike enthusiasts. which is to say, clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. if i set my mind to it, i can simulate just about everything from this northern russian internet cafe.

so we're having our first real snow in yaroslavl'. it started this afternoon around 4 pm and is only now starting to let up. it was one of those first snows in driving wind, so everything is covered with about an inch of snow from one side, which is an interesting first snow. i've taken some pictures already and in all likelihood will head out for a few more after my time here in the palace netzone expires. i can't post the pictures from here, but since i don't have much to do tomorrow i'll probably go to the university and see if i can get into our classroom.

so most of my american cohorts have already left yaroslavl' for their holiday travels and i was looking at a relatively uninteresting night between home and the internet cafe when hunter called out of the blue to say that he'd ended up in yaroslavl'. he and a friend are taking a bus tour with a bunch of russian tourists of the 'golden ring,' which, if you've foolishly been following my posts, you'd know is the circle of old russian cities in the north with lots of rotting old churches. i found them (hunter, bren and the churches) out in the cold at the end of ulitza kirova and we first stopped in at кафе актёр, which was crowded and generally crappy as usual. but i said i'd give it another try, and i did. so we went to my new hangout, МакМастер, the mcdonalds ripoff on my block. they have better fries, three beers on tap, and live a mere 2 minutes by foot from my home. so unless i happen to be in desperate need of a decent sandwich, there's little chance i'm going to make the 10 minute hike to mcdonalds or pay 5 rubles (15 cents? 20 cents?) for a tram.

so as i was saying, we ended up at macmacster and thawed out a bit. apparently it's time for me to buy a better scarf and a hat. after they finish dinner at their hotel, we're going to meet up again and see if we can find something interesting to do on a snowy sunday evening in the provinces....

russian glow bowling

2004-10-29T15:54:00.000+04:00

so we've found something new to do in yaroslavl' - about 5 minutes from my house there's a bowling alley (with glow bowling at night). there are all of 6 lanes, and by american standards it's pricey, but split among a handful of people it's not too bad. we've already gone twice and somehow last night we made a few interesting friends and ended up staying there until closing. a-yeah. i ended up talking for a long time with a veteran who served in afghanistan, and who apparently had a military tattoo that meant his unit had killed 300 people. i can't independently confirm that because i didn't see that tattoo, but flash, our resident spook, said that he thought he recognized the tattoo. anyway, apparently in about a week one of the other guys is celebrating the birth of his son (at the bowling alley) and i really can't wait to see what that's going to be like.

and so it turns out i'm an awful bowler. the high point of my night was somehow managing a 125, and throwing two strikes and a spare, which left me one pin away from a free pepsi. if i keep wasting my money on bowling, i'm sure sooner or later i'll get that third strike and maybe even my free pepsi, waitress willing. i should add that the second game i somehow managed to half my score with a whopping 10 gutterballs (well, i stopped counting at 10). we were very ostensibly the only people there who would have benefited from bumpers, although i should add that danny's a sharp bowler. as is our fearless leader simone.

it's an interesting experience - the first time we went (during the day) there were about 30 screaming kids and their handler. the second time, it was an entirely different atmosphere. for one thing, it was already pretty late and they had turned the lights off. the balls kept getting stuck at the back of the lane and the mechanic who had to fix it each time just started hanging out behind us. it was smokey, well it's a bar too. so you get the idea. there is a big roulette machine and as danny noticed, like everywhere else in the world, there was the standard assortment of video games. also, there's a shortage of chairs.

vote, damnit. and come eat my apples.

2004-10-25T14:27:00.000+04:00

so i'd just like to remind everyone back home that i'm sitting around in russia and there's nothing i can do about the fact that there's an election in a week. i've already voted. please, please, please drag your friends, neighbors, and neighborhood vagrants to the polls. i really don't know how much longer i can haunt the internet cafe, compulsively checking various polling agencies.

larisa anatolievna showed up last night with two 50 lb sacks of apples from her dacha, and i could really use a little help. last night i had apples, apple pirogis, apple juice, and i think there should be left overs for tonight....so, open invitation for guests. the good news, i guess, is that they're cleaner than our apples because russians don't use pesticides. the bad news, of course, is that we use pesticides for a good reason.

yaroslavl and burlington

2004-10-23T15:06:00.000+04:00

i found out a while ago, but have constantly been forgetting to mention, that yaroslavl' is a sister city of burlington vermont. there's a big rock outside the cafe i ate at last night with a list of all the other cities. i'm not really sure what the program does, or whether there is any formal exchange of people/correspondence etc. but i was sufficiently surprised to see the name of a familiar little town on a rock in central russia to mention it here.

i'm not really sure how yaroslavl' and burlington ended up together, but then, i don't really know what the sister city criteria are. in the center, burlington almost seems like a bigger city because of the higher buildings and what not - yaroslavl' is much more spread out and buildings higher than 5 stories are banned in the center of the town. i live on the ninth (and highest) floor of a building that was built 'accidentally' in the 70's, so i have a great view of the city. yaroslavl' doesn't really have a body of water so vast as lake champlain, but the convergence of the volga and kotorosi rivers and the park in the area has a similar feel. i don't even know what the population of burlington is, but i don't think it's close to the 700,000 or so in yaroslavl'. i'm just glad we're all friends again.

sox, jon stewart, and moscow...

2004-10-21T16:45:00.000+04:00

so the red sox came back from 0-3 to beat the yankees. first team in history to lose the first three and come back to win the last four. it has to be the start of something, it has to be the start of something....

jon stewart. i'm not going to get into lengthy commentary because virtually every politics blog on the net has been all over this story, but if you hadn't heard about jon stewart's appearance on crossfire - well you're probably in the middle of russia too. you can read the transcript or if you're fortunate enough to have a real internet connection at your disposal, you can watch the video. here's a random excerpt:

CARLSON: Jon, Jon, Jon, I'm sorry. I think you're a good comedian. I think your lectures are boring.
STEWART: Yes.
CARLSON: Let me ask you a question on the news.
STEWART: How old are you?
CARLSON: Thirty-five.
STEWART: And you wear a bow tie.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Yes, I do. I do.
STEWART: So this is...
CARLSON: I know. I know. I know. You're a...
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: So this is theater.
CARLSON: Now, let me just...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Now, come on.
STEWART: Now, listen, I'm not suggesting that you're not a smart guy, because those are not easy to tie.
CARLSON: They're difficult.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: But the thing is that this -- you're doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great.
BEGALA: We do, do...
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.
CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?
STEWART: Absolutely.
CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you...
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: What is wrong with you?

jon stewart is a champ. so, sorry for all the scrolling down. i got carried away with the cut/paste...but i can never really trust you to click my links, can i? right.

and so we have yet another vacation coming up - the first week of november (so oct 30-nov 8, counting the weekends). but we're really all working very hard here. roman called me from moscow last night and invited me to come visit him, which i'm planning on doing as the rest of the americans here are planning travels in russia and abroad. that's something to look forward to. if anyone else will be in moscow - let me know.

i guess one more interesting story before i go. well i don't know, i liked it. i was walking home from net zone after trying to catch the baseball game, and i ducked into this little store built into one of the city's old fortress towers. two guys in the store noticed my accent and started asking me questions and the like. anyway that's kind of the one nice thing about being in yaroslavl - a lot of people are genuinely interested in talking. they closed the little magazine in my honor and we sat around inside and talked for about 3 hours. the last hour and a half was dedicated to discussing the peculiarities of russian and american vulgarity, and the problems in translation. among the things i might have agreed to: going to shinnik's last football match, going to their billiards club, and going out with them again yesterday. i don't really know, it was getting late. so we'll see how that turns out. i'm am tired. so if you happen to me my favourite londoner, apologies. i'm going home to sleep. but i'll write back soon.

the belarusian KGB

2004-10-20T11:41:00.000+04:00

back in the u-s-, back in the u-s-s-r!

as usual, more great news from the former soviet union. the KGB in Belarus has arrested Illya Mafter, an employee of George Soros' Open Society Institute.

Belarusian KGB chief Leonid Yerin said late Monday that Mafter was arrested on fraud charges after being suspected of having "misappropriated some of the funds entrusted to him," the Interfax news agency said. "We are perplexed by the arrest of Ilya Mafter, who is working on a project benefiting Belarus and its people," said Aryeh Neier, the Open Society Institutute's president. "We urge the Belarusian authorities to release him without delay. The OSI is extremely concerned about his health and welfare."

The Belarus branch of the Soros Foundation closed in 1997, citing government harassment including the expulsion of its director and the seizure of its assets. OSI said Mafter was working on a project in collaboration with the Belarusian Ministry of Education to help expand Internet service. OSI's program in Belarus aims to provide Internet service to a broad range of organizations in the former Soviet republic of 10 million. UNDP administers the program. A report issued by the KGB said that the U.S. citizen was accused of involvement in fraud against Belarus' VELCOM cell phone provider, Interfax reported.

The news agency later quoted unidentified KGB sources as saying that Mafter is accused of inflicting $100,000 worth of damage to Belarus' communications providers, including the Beltelecom company, by organizing "illegal communications services" using the Internet. Mafter is suspected of "causing damage to property" and "working as an entrepreneur without registration or permission," Interfax quoted the KGB sources as saying....

Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist since his first election in 1994, stifling the opposition and free media, and putting his nation on an isolated, anti-Western path. He pushed through a constitutional referendum Sunday that scrapped presidential term limits, allowing him to run again in 2006.

HA!

2004-10-20T09:00:00.000+04:00

the RED SOX.

'watching' the sox at net-zone

2004-10-20T01:40:00.000+04:00

i'm currently in net zone waiting for the red sox - yankees game to start so i can follow it online. it's not really the same, but options are pretty limited in yaroslavl' at midnight for baseball. net zone doesn't sell hot dogs, but they have beer, sukhariki, and about 30 people playing counter strike loudly enough to simulate the stadium experience. i don't know if i'll be able to bring myself to stay for the whole game...the way they're going i might not get to class on time in the morning. anyway, i'm not going to make any predictions publicly.

and a strange phenomenon, which i think is a symptom of my latent homesickness - i've started eating at mcdonalds. Макдоналдс. Биг-Тейсти. I've had lunch there the past two days, and it isn't exactly the most convenient of lunch options from the university. I should add that i've probably eaten in macdonalds in america a grand total of 3 times in the past 5 years, maybe fewer. i always thought that the big mac had tomatos, ketchup, mustard, and onions...you know, the works. but in russia no dice. i've turned to the 'big tasty' burger, which i'd never heard of until i got to yaroslavl'. it's a genuinely large hamburger with lettuce, tomato, and some kind of tasty-sauce. as it turns out, mcdonalds in yaroslavl' (i've only been to the larger of the two) isn't tremendously interesting because for the most part it's exactly like a mcdonalds in america (although cleaner and better staffed than most). you have to pay for ketchup. that was sort of odd. i think it's 7.5 rubles for a packet of ketchup. that's about 25 cents USD.

and somehow i forgot that 12-8= 4. which puts the sox game into tomorrow morning, my time. i'd just delete the whole post, but it's funnier for everyone this way. i could have just (finally) gotten some sleep and checked out the game from the university tomorrow morning when it will (probably) be almost over. unless they play for 18 innings....

suzdal'

2004-10-18T11:39:00.000+04:00

So yesterday morning i left my apartment at 6:40 (still dark) after a few insufficient hours of sleep and dragged myself (on a sunday) to the university to catch a bus to suzdal'. Suzdal' is a very old russian village on the 'golden ring,' of which yaroslavl' is also a part. It's a couple kilometers from end to end, and has more or less been preserved as it was - the whole town was declared a museum during soviet times. I was going to refer you to the wikipedia article on suzdal', but for whatever reason no one has gotten around to writing it yet. And let me tell you folks, your lazy narrator is not going to be the one to do it.

We rode by bus for a little under four hours, most of which were punctuated by intermittent commentary from our professor over the bus microphone. we passed through yaroslavl', vladimirovna, and ivanovna oblasti, but the view was mostly dachas. sleep would have been nice, but you know, the history of open fields is cool too. to his credit, andrei yurievich (professor) did point out some interesting buildings and towns and the like, and it was certainly better than the movie we watched on the way back. (van helsing? has anyone else seen this??)

anyway it turned out to be a fairly long day, but our professor is a fun and interesting guy and he went out of his way to explain a lot of things to lelia and me when he thought we were having trouble with the tour guide. we were only inside one of the churches, most of which are closed up for the winter. in the church where i took pictures of the frescos we heard a traditional russian orthodox choir (or group of 6 guys. i don't know what's traditional, they just had traditional-looking outfits). they sang entirely without musical accompaniment, which is unusual sounding, and very pretty. i wish i remembered more about the individual buildings, but the only things i really took away from the architecture excursion were pictures.

colder

2004-10-14T16:55:00.000+04:00

it's already getting colder in yaroslavl' - the past few days the neon clock/thermometer on the way to the university has been calling it a bit above freezing. here in 'the classroom' we had to decide (until today) whether we wanted the space heater or the 5 intermittently working stone age computers with internet. so if you've seen a lot of typos in the correspondence home, it's not because we're stupid. it's because we're wearing mittens. this morning someone found another space heater which apparently we can run simultaneously with the computers and no risk of explosions or fires. my entire right side is currently basking in the warmth.

so what else is new in yaroslavl', you ask? not a lot. i saw a woman out walking with an empty baby stroller this morning. i saw that pidgeons do get run over sometimes. i finally found a mainstream course in the university - 5 weeks or so after it began. it's on the history of architecture in russia, and while it wasn't the first class i ran to sign up for, it fit my schedule and i like the professor. on sunday we're meeting at an unfortunate hour in front of the university for an excursion to suzdal to see churches, so if you're a fan of old russian orthodox churches, you know where to turn for pictures monday morning.

i stopped reporting on the locomotiv's trials and triumphs, but they've been winning more than they've been losing lately, and generally playing a lot better. they beat lada 4-2 last night (i watched from home) and they beat spartak 4-1 (i think) last friday. and then there are my two teams back in boston....

anyway i'm heading home. instinct. it's heated, and there is food. more soon.

sochi.

2004-10-11T09:56:00.000+04:00

Pictures from Sochi are up. Here's the link.

So, as I sit back home on the eve of another monday, it occurs to me that there's probably no such thing as a relaxing vacation if it involves travel. Travel into, out of, or within Russia is no exception, not surprisingly. We had a relatively catch-free trip both to and from Sochi, but there was, I’d say, excessive waiting around at all junctures. We met at around midnight at Yaroslavl's main train station, had a few chances at sleep on the 4-hour train ride to Moscow, and then emptied out to stand around and wait for the metro to open up. Breakfast was at the American Bar and Grille at Mayakovskaya, which was great. Recommended, even. Maybe a bit expensive, but not bad for Moscow, and nothing but good for the vaguely homesick American. Unfortunately, at 6ish am we were late for the dinner menu, but i'm planning to get back there sometime for an allegedly-genuine hamburger. Also, they had old Larry Bird games on the TV set for most of the time we were there, which was great. I love those guys.

So travel is boring. We got to Sochi calmly on an entirely respectable Aeroflot flight. I guess I'd expected a lot worse from Aeroflot, but it was only typically-cramped and we got a relatively complete (and I thought tasty) meal for a two hour flight. So thumbs up, Aeroflot. I bet you thought the airline of the former Soviet Union would be lousy too. Yeah, but it was ok. At the airport, we were greeted by a gauntlet of taxi drivers, which was great. The first ones were ok; they played it cool and, well, let us keep walking if we didn't want a taxi. After the first 4 or so on each side, they were all a bit more desperate. As if maybe we had changed our mind after the first 18 tempting offers and were really deciding we didn't want to walk to the hotel after all. After the gauntlet, there was a handful of other cabbies milling around, not even bothering to ask. They were good too, and I'd have gone with them if we weren't all going to the hotel together on a marshrut thing. Which is to say, a van. Also, one of maybe three or four really great points in my trip, and I don't even mind mentioning it, was at the airport. Right after we got in, a group of 15 or 20 really-pretty-going-on-modelish girls landed (2 or 3 of whom...) and were milling around together. I don't know where they came from or why, but I'm positive I've never seen anything like it.

Anyway our luggage came shortly and we were quickly whisked away within some 15 minutes, or at least before we could find our senses. I'd feel bad in retrospect that nothing came of it, but even the girls in our group were kind of standing around gawking.

So Sochi. It was warm and sunny and one of those airports where you walk around outside the airplane instead of through some big gate. I really like those. The whole thing actually reminded me a lot of Mexico in that the airport was pretty second class, everyone was smoking inside, the cabbies looked hungry, and there were palm trees half heartedly planted around the parking lot. Also on the ride over I saw a guy jackhammering in sandals, which is sort of pushing the bounds of what i'd consider second-world. Anyway, putting it that way makes it sound as if I didn't like it. But I did. It was charming even, in a tourist-town sort of way, especially before we got into the Sochi-part of Sochi.

We checked into the hotel late afternoonish and had a "free day" to wander around and want sleep after our 15 or so hours on the road. We met up with the kids from Moscow, exchanged cell phone numbers, ate dinner, had a beer down by the beach, and went to sleep fairly early.

Day 2

That's dramatic isn't it? We all got up early, had the first of decreasingly tolerable breakfasts at the hotel breakfast restaurant, and got on the bus to Красная Поляна for our first of two hikes. Little did we know, it was cold and rainy there, and at the top of the mountains where we were to be hiking it was snowing. We were all in shorts, t-shirts, and the like. As an afterthought I grabbed the rain jacket moms bought for me before the trip to russia, which turned out to be really sharp. Our guides told us that it was going to be around freezing at the top and we'd be out hiking for about 4 hours, and suggested that we head into the gear shop for overpriced tourist-outfitting. Your tempered new-englander made the right choice and decided to stick with the shorts, t-shirt, rain jacket combo which fortunately proved to be adequate (despite the weather) once we got rolling.

We had a pretty considerable ride (almost an hour, I think) on a series of four chairlifts, which brought us to the top of the mountains where we would be hiking. The pictures from this part more or less speak for themselves - it was incredibly foggy, and although that was gorgeous in and of itself, the view we missed (but caught on the way down) was an entirely different story. I ended up being the odd-man out at the back of the line for the chairlift, and had the good fortune of riding up with one of our three guides, one very charming Vika. We talked about skiing, life at Krasnaya Polyana, the mountains, the fog. She was great.

At the top of the four lifts was a little base camp with a small cafe/bar. The drink of the day was Глинтвейн, which I've given a capital G in awe and respect. Hang onto your seats, folks. It's warm-going-on-hot red (fortified?) wine with mulling spices like the ones we throw in apple cider back home. And a chunk of orange. It was spectacular, and between apple cider and glintvein (so ugly transliterated...) I don't see why anyone needs hot chocolate. Anyway, after two cups of it and two snickers (не тормози!), I was more than ready to face the light snow, freezing weather, and whatever else the mountains of the Southern Caucuses had to throw at me. For the geographers in the group, we were hiking along (and for all I know across) the border with Georgia. I guess here I'll just cut the narrative out a little and let the pictures speak for themselves. Anyone who's hiked/photographed big open places knows that pictures never suffice, but there you have it. It was beautiful, and a great hike. Our guides were very sharp, even in the thick fog.

After we got back to the starting point, we all rode down on the chair lift, which was cranked up to full throttle and rocking unbelievablely because we were late. And hey, everyone wanted home. I rode back down with Vika, and the conversation picked up as it left off. At the bottom we returned our ski-poll-walking-sticks and went to check out the local bee farm. Apparently the area and Krasnaya Polyana in particular is famous for its honey, and we were treated to a couple hot samovars of tea and various jars of honey to sample before a brief tour of the bee hives. We had dinner nearby in a very Southern-US themed place, complete with a poster of Russia's man-of-the-people Vlad Zhirinovsky. Exhausted and sated, we all got on the bus and dozed off on the way back to Sochi (to the extent that provincial Russian roads permit dozing off). The bus driver had one of the girls answer his cell phone when his wife called. Which is to say, he asked the girls, “Which one of you speaks the best Russian?” and then gave her the phone. I can't imagine why anyone would do that to himself, but he did it, and it was great.

The next day was a "free day," which is to say we had nothing planned as a group. All the days were technically free days, as no one was required to come along on the hikes and a few of our best and brightest deferred on both occasions. I decided to skip out on a boating expedition that morning because I’m not nuts about boating or waking up early. I didn't do much in particular during the day - sat out around the beach during the day to catch what glimpses of the sun I could. It was 50% cloudy, and somehow the sun managed to dance the dance and stay behind them. In the evening Rohan and I had a few friends over for a drink, and I'm told we got to bed sometime before sunrise.

So this is already heading into day four, and we met up with two of our three guides from the trip to Krasnaya Palyana (alas, minus Vika) for a trip to a really gorgeous canyon, the name of which I forgot. You'll never know what it's called. I was, we'll say, still feeling a little under the weather from the previous evening's festivities, but I was alive enough to enjoy the scenery, if not the hiking. We did a little rock climbing in the morning. jay fitzgerald if you're still reading, you'll be happy to know that you could speak english to russians about climbing and they'd understand everything...bouldering, traverse. russian words! Боулдеринг. I'm not sure how they'd spell it. I explained to Sergei the idea of buildering (and the word play). Anyway, I'm a lousy climber and I didn't do very well, but it was fun all the same. I think I'm going to let the handful of pictures from this expedition more or less do the talking because my memories of the day are somewhat tainted. In the evening we had a tasty bbq-style dinner, and there was an eagle tied to a post and a little bar-store with old guns from the great fatherland war. Which is to say WWII. I asked why they had guns and an eagle. The guns, they told me, were from the war, and the eagle, well, they bought it when it was a baby. Isn't that why you have your eagle?

So we rode back home, and I went to bed at 7 pm. I slept until 9 am, and awoke to another "free day" in Sochi. I should add that Sochi as a resorty-sort of place is not a place I'd run back to. Certainly from American there are a billion closer and more likeable places with, for example, sand beaches. Even from Russia, a trip to Turkey or Egypt is probably cheaper and relatively more interesting (if you don’t have to worry about the visa/passport hassles). We hit Sochi at the very very end of the tourist season, and things for the most part were already shutting down. Again, this isn't to say that I didn't have a good time...just that after another couple 'free days' I think I might have managed to exhaust all nearby entertainment. We had free bracelets at the local water park on the beach, and I was one of a couple in our group that managed to get down to the desk in time to collect mine. I sat around at the water park for a few hours in the late morning, and then went out looking for comrades, as no one else had arrived. We slept on the beach and swam in the sea. I had an interesting conversation with a fellow on the breakwater who was collecting snails for dinner. Josh, Danya and I returned to the water park for a few rides on the water slides and then headed back up to the hotel for dinner.

I should definitely mention the restaurant at which I ate the majority of my meals. It was (I think...) either turkish or kurdish cuisine. Cuisine is an obnoxious word. Basically when you show up for dinner you have a choice of either chicken, lamb, or beef. You get a skillet with fried meat/vegetables...I'm not a culinary expert. It was all very tasty. I recommend the lamb. I always recommend the lamb when it's coming from somewhere south of Russia. Also we had hands down the most friendly and accommodating waitress in Russia, and that in and of itself was a treat. So yeah, while i'm writing third class restaurant reviews, here's a thumbs up for the restaurant 'magnolia' on kurortnaya prospekta in Sochi. Ask for the girl who likes chatty Americans.

That night I went back down to the beach with friends and much to everyone's surprise, we ran into the handful of other Americans we were there with. Our ever personable leader Simone had already made the acquaintance of one of the shopkeepers and one of his patrons when I arrived, and we ended up hanging out around one of the kiosks for an hour or so, talking about politics in America. The shopkeeper closed up, and I ended up talking with Genya (I think that's what Simone said his name was. He and I didn't end up personally trading names.) for another three hours or so until a bit past 2 am. I'm not sure exactly what he did or who he was, but I was more than willing to listen. He referred to himself a few times as a 'pedagogue.’ Suffice it to say he was one of the more interesting people I've met in my twenty years, and I'm not even going to try to list or remember everything we talked about. He was probably in his late 50's, or early 60's. We talked and walked on the beach for about four hours, he bought be a couple czech beers, and taught me that no one should ever have to pay for a toilet. There were some other things, but you kind of had to be there.

And so yeah. That was hands down the high point of my trip, and easily among the better evenings i've spent in Russia. Friday morning we were up again early for a breakfast that was just foolishly unappealing. I seriously would have eaten that egg thing from the first day every day if they'd offered it. It was fine, even tasty, and there's something to be said for consistency in mediocrity.

The rest of the day was long and traveling, but somewhat easier than the trip to Sochi. There was no throng of models at the airport, but we did get to go through a bunch of security. Somehow Russian domestic security is a lot more relaxed than in America. I don't know why or how, but I know that it is. Also another interesting note - when our captain landed in Moscow, the whole plain burst out in applause. I'm not a frequent air traveler, so I don't know if this is common, but I'd never seen it before. It didn't happen when we flew to Sochi, or into Moscow from Germany (and let me tell you, I couldn't even tell when the Lufthansa captain touched down). So I don't know whether it was an expression of relief? genuine applause at the (in my opinion average) landing, or what? or what?

And so we had what was billed on the schedule as a free afternoon in Moscow. By the time we stored our baggage at the Yaroslavl' train station, it was already four-ish and we had to be back at the terminal by 7:45. I was unsuccessful in contacting the handful of people i know in Moscow, and really I'm to blame because I forgot to call people ahead of time. Sorry Roman. Sorry Hunter. Sorry Emma. I called your cell phone, and your mom courteously reminded me that you're actually in America at the moment.

I wandered around and ate my first meal at a Sbarros. Sbarro? I don't even remember how it's spelled. There's one in Biddeford, ME. Oh, Biddeford. I bought my second russian copy of Erofeev's Москва-Петушки, and sat around the train station with decidedly less literate russian drinkers (than erofeev...) and read until 8. unremarkable train ride home. can you tell i'm getting tired? irregular capitalization. incomplete sentences. you're handling it well, though.

The cabbie in Yaroslavl' ripped us off, and I was too tired to argue with him for long. I got home and Larisa, someone bless her, was waiting up for me (midnight-ish) to warm up food and tea.

So I guess I can end it there. My trip to Sochi. It was a good one. I’m positive that I forgot a lot, whole days maybe, but the abridged version is always a trick. I didn't send any postcards because i'm a bad person and I didn't have your addresses.

back from sochi

2004-10-08T13:32:00.000+04:00

well i got into yaroslavl' from sochi around midnight last night, and only very recently woke myself from a long nap. oh wait, that was jackhammering under my window. for the time being, suffice it to say the weather was nice and i had a great time. it'd take me another week to write about everything that happened, but after the weekend i'll post some pictures and stories. also net zone has hiked the rate for unregistered users, so i guess i'm finally going to have to tote the passport down here and get myself registered. i'm not sure why a free registration gets me discounted internet access, but what the hell i'm not organizing an insurgency.

anyway, more soon. i'm going to read the news and my email. did anything happen?

leaving for sochi

2004-10-01T12:48:00.000+04:00

i'm off for sochi by way of moscow late tonight, and i likely won't be around a computer for the coming week. i don't know exactly what we're doing, but hiking/beach/'jeeping'/and rafting are all on the list as of now. more soon.

the peculiarities of russian national flushing

2004-09-29T11:51:00.000+04:00

well i've stayed silent on the subject for long enough. russian bathrooms. russian toilets. for whatever reason, travelers always feel obligated to share their observations on the matter, and i won't be excluded. i have rather a lot i'd like to share, so i'm going to go in a more or less chronological order.

first and foremost, a few general observations. i get the feeling that at some point the soviet union decided that people don't have sex, and don't excrete waste. at least not soviet people on the road to building socialism. (you're a naughty boy, and that's concentrated evil coming out of the back of you). bathrooms, i suspect, still aren't cleaned or maintained because in the soviet union no one was supposed to have to clean up other people's shit. maybe it's bad to blame too much of contemporary russia on holdovers from possible soviet mentalities, but it passes the time.

bathroom markings. the signs. the illustrations. the excuse me, where is the bathroom. needless to say, back home i'm used to knowing where the bathroom is in many places, and at the very worst i can follow the signs. in russia there is no open way of knowing that people actually go to the bathroom. at best, you might find a triangle on a door, the direction of which is important. they seem to have taken the beloved illustrations of the broad-shouldered narrow-waisted man and the narrow shouldered-large-dress-wearing-(or very pregnant) woman and lopped their heads off. i'm not really sure what this accomplishes, but there you have it. to be fair, i've seen a couple signs for the WC, notably at yaroslavl's new hockey arena.

then there's the clockwise counter-clockwise question. at some point in the history of world exploration, someone wrecked it for all of us and suggested that it had something to do with the equator. tragically, that someone froze to death trying to install and flush a toilet at the south pole, and he probably never even thought to ask how they flush in russia. but for the rest of you:

you almost invariable pull up or push down some circular flushing mechanism on the top of the tank, where there's supposed to be a magazine or something. then a peculiar thing- the water comes rushing down and it doesn't swirl at all. it's almost like on airplanes where there is the tremendous sucking mechanism, only not with all the chemicals. then there's russian trains, where you flush the toilet and watch a hole open up to the tracks below. so yeah, if you were ever wondering. russians do go to the bathroom, and they have terrifying and incomprehensible toilets.

also there's a constant lack of toilet paper. this is relatively easy to figure out.

then, there is the a nation-wide lack of toilet seats.

i don't know where they go, or if they ever were. i don't know if they just break and aren't replaced? if they are stolen? and if so why? they just aren't. and it's clear that they won't soon be, because no one seems to mind. even in relatively nice restaurants and cafes more often then not toilet seats are not to be found. maybe you have to rent them from behind the bar when you pay to use the toilet. the implications are easily enough discerned. i think this might have something to do with why russians are always hurrying along somewhere and not looking or smiling at anyone.

weekend, the magic finger

2004-09-27T10:06:00.000+04:00

well i had another great weekend. i'll leave the weekend at that. i have another 50 minutes of grammar with my favorite soviet-era pedagogue, and then i am, well, free until after lunch. i watched tv for a while last night...i wish i could somehow share how ridiculous the tv advertising is. the animation, the music, the acting...all the actual made in russia ads look like local-tv advertising in america. as in, for the local hardware store. also, you know those made-for-tv crap products? like the magic electro-vibrator pads that you stick to you? the ones that magic the fat away while you're buying more crap on the shopping channel?

they have those all over the place here, but even more ridiculous. my favorite last night was the 'magic-finger'... it's some gadget you strap onto your finger and then massage yourself. i know i didn't understand all the wonders, but among the promised benefits:

massage
acupuncture (there was a half chinese woman who explained that she thought this was great)
pain relief
quitting smoking

i should mention that this was all c/o some sort of spectacular electricity or magnetism or something. anyway, needless to say, i'm ordering a dozen so i can bring this amazing technology back to the west. also you should see the advertising for what probably ought to be prescription drugs...i don't think russia has an FDA type body yet.

evgenii onegin, party at anya's, words for thursday

2004-09-23T16:08:00.000+04:00

class is out for the day. i just had two hours of literature, during which we talked about pushkin's novel in verse Евгений Онегин (eugene onegin). in the middle of the second hour a young guy burst in, asked if we were the american students, and started telling us that there would be a party at anya's place on friday, that we were invited and that we should call such and such a number (the suches of which i know), and, by the way, may he write the number on the board?

our literature teacher, who is only in her late twenties or so had no idea what to do, and just gave him a marker. the whole thing was even funnier because anya is a friend of our middlebury coordinator here in yaroslavl'. on top of that, the program coordinator from moscow was here in yaroslavl' today, and happened to be sitting in on our literature course to see how things were going with the new teacher.

our teacher made a poised recovery after he left, and all proceeded more or less normally from there.

XLVII.

"А счастье было так возможно,
Так близко!.. Но судьба моя
Уж решена. Неосторожно,
Быть может, поступила я:
Меня с слезами заклинаний
Молила мать; для бедной Тани
Все были жребии равны...
Я вышла замуж. Вы должны,
Я вас прошу, меня оставить;
Я знаю: в вашем сердце есть
И гордость, и прямая честь.
Я вас люблю (к чему лукавить?),
Но я другому отдана;
Я буду век ему верна".

Пушкин.

old photos

2004-09-23T11:01:00.000+04:00

so i just got the photos from the 2nd hockey game and the mushroom hunting trip up. also a picture of the little jail place i was detained. i was going to ask for a picture from inside, but by the time they said i could i figured i'd cut my losses and book...

Lokomotiv-Severstal'
Mushroom hunting

Also, larisa anatolievna just told me that she's going to a resort type place outside of yaroslavl' to rest until oct. 5. so i'm pretty much on my own for two weeks. i guess her son will be there a lot, which is good - i like him a lot.

dacha

2004-09-21T14:50:00.000+04:00

so, again no real luck at the history department because we misread the schedule and the class we wanted to sit in on had already started. i'm glad to report that we did however successfully order and eat a tasty lunch at the cafe across the street.

i should clarify the dates/times a bit, if only my sake. we went to the dacha around noon on sunday and then went mushroom hunting at a different dacha at 9 am monday. the dacha. there aren't really 'suburbs' in any american sense in russia, so far as i can tell. there are outskirts of the city, which still look like a city, and there are dachas. the idea of a dacha is sort of difficult to translate then, because they're not really 'summer houses' although they more or less function as such. many more russians have family dachas, and they're for the most part very modest...something along the lines of a hut/cabin/camp i guess. they're all fairly packed in together on little plots of land which are primarily vegetable gardens, (although i'd imagine the further you drive from the city, the more spacious the dachas. we took a tram and it was only a 20 or 30 minute drive, tops, which considering the 1.5 hours for mushrooms, isn't too far). the whole scene is very charming because all the dachas are relatively different looking, but if you look over the fences you can find old women digging up potatoes and beets at each of them.

for a few hours in the afternoon we all rolled up our sleeves and worked in the garden. a lot of weeding/turning over soil, and the girls very diligently gathered berries or something. at worst apples. as a former gardener i was surprised to see how the whole thing took place - when we arrived the whole garden looked entirely overrun because most of the garden had already been dug (only the carrots and beets i think were still in the ground). so it looked like a giant field of weeds that hadn't seen any attention in quite a long time. i expected that we'd be pulling it all and then maybe turning the soil or something, but the woman who owned the dacha just went over each patch and hacked off everything from the soil up with a machete. then she had us dig up and turn over the soil with all the roots and a lot of the weeds still in the soil. i know that dead plant matter is good to leave in the soil to replentish the nitrogen and all of that, but there was clearly no problem with this soil...it's just going to be growing more weeds.

so anyway i just minded my own business and gardened as i was asked to. it's amazing how many carrots and potatoes and beets (not to mention apples and cherry-things, and berries) can be grown on a small plot of land - obviously she's doing something right. this dacha method, it seems to me, is a significantly more productive than mushroom hunting, although maybe the mushrooms are better and closer in some cities.

the better part of the evening was spent relaxing, eating, drinking, and building a number of fires, at least of few of which, i'm sure, were completely unnecessary. the whole experience was great - i really love digging and gardening and earthworms, and it's always strangely pleasing to look at a freshly weeded and well turned patch of dirt. taken in its totality (that is, after a good night's rest back home and a morning of rehydration), it's a really relaxing experience and a great break from the city. the people we were with were tremendously hospitable, and (it seemed to me) glad to have the help and the company. i've only seen the pictures of larisa anatolievna's dacha, but it seemed more or the less same - probably a bit larger. much of what i've even so far, especially the soups and stews, are almost exclusively from things she personally grew at her dacha. she also makes a couple of really good jams, and (for russia) she grows some good looking apples.

i'll save the idea of russian apples for a later post.

i am not a mushroom hunter

2004-09-21T12:37:00.000+04:00

i had a fairly packed weekend, which is why i haven't written much lately or posted the hockey pictures yet. at the moment, i have to run back over to the history department and try to find a mainstream university course that will fit into my middlebury course schedule. the whole process is a nightmare because the russian university course schedules change regularly for the first few weeks. anyhow, that's the most immediate project. since i don't have a lot else to do today, i'll probably be back at some point to share some observations on my first trip to a russian dacha and my first (in russia) mushroom hunting expedition. i didn't bring my camera to the dacha unfortunately, but there were several floating around so i might be able to find some pictures.

well...maybe i have time to talk about the mushroom trip, which was somewhat less entertaining than at the dacha, and literally, far less fruitful. although all of the mushrooms i found were very large and pretty, larisa anatolievna threw them all down the garbage chute and then proceeded to wash her hands for much longer than i imagine was necessary, as if for greater effect. and this is considering that i carefully avoided a bunch of the ones that i knew were poisonous/questionable.

wihch leads me to my major problem with mushroom hunting, at least in the fashion we undertook it. we drove and hour and half on a school bus to someone's dacha, and walked around in the woods and gathered the handfuls of mushrooms we could find. the most successful catches were all small, mostly-already-nibbled, not-terribly-appetizing looking mushrooms. we then had a picnic lunch and drove an hour and a half back to the city on 'roads' such that no one had to worry about accidentally catching a nap. at this point, you can probably imagine that gathering mushrooms was not the primary or even secondary goal of the expedition, which i suppose is fine. you can buy large and very tasty radioactive mushrooms from ukraine all over the place, or you can buy them in markets from babushki who are going to gather them anyway. more than anything, maybe i'm bitter that i didn't find anything edible after two hours in the woods.

on the lighter side, i found two woodpeckers, a pretty river, lots of frogs (we were considering gathering them instead..), and some strange poisonous plant that looked like mint and stung like hell. i pulled one leaf off, and immediately tried to drop it because it felt like it had thorns all over the underside of the leaf. as it turned out, i think it was actually some kind of crazy inland jellyfish poison sap, because there definitely weren't any thorns in my fingers. my hand stung for about an hour and i had a line of swollen little white bumps that looked like insect bites. fortunately for all involved, i managed a miraculous recovery, and am currently feeling fine. but just don't say i didn't warn you that it's probably not a random mint plant in the russian woods.

so i think that's all. i have some pictures for later, hopefully.

3rd locomotive game, 3rd loss, nothing exciting.

2004-09-18T23:18:00.000+04:00

the title says it all. lokomotiv lost again tonight, this time 4-1 (first goal!) against SKA of saint petersburg. although they've allegedly won this season, i've only seen the losses....nonetheless, i've already committed myself, so i'm going to stick it out and keep attending. tonight we were seated across a tunnel from the small but rowdy contingent of petersburg fans who travelled 12 hours (one way) for the match. they were surrounded by no fewer than 15 special-ops troops in fatigues, and were allegedly running around the city singing wars songs this morning (the fans).

so that's all for now. someone let me know how the patriots do tomorrow.

2nd locomotive game, 1st arrest, pictures

2004-09-17T13:59:00.000+04:00

So last night we went to our second locomotive game, and they managed to lose again. According to the team's website, they won a couple games in the interim, but I wasn't at them. This time they lost 3-0, but the last one was scored on an empty goal. I took a lot of pictures at the game, but most of them didn't come out terribly well and they probably won't be posted until after the weekend.

After the game josh and i had dinner at cafe 'kombat' (this might be the best picture of the night), and headed home relatively early. Right after josh headed off down his road, i was stopped at a little police kiosk and detained in a miniature cell. They were giving me a hard time about my documents and things not being in order, but it was pretty clear they were just trying to scare me into giving them some money. I didn't really have anything to worry about because my papers were all in order, and wasn't doing anything wrong. Fortunately my russian came through and the two cops who were waiting inside the kiosk didn't realize i was an american until after the other cop told them. so they closed the little cell door and sat around smirking and smoking cigarrettes, and acting like they were looking at my papers.

They made me sit in their little cell for maybe 10 minutes and kept asking me questions...why all the photocopies were so shitty, were these even real documents, where i was studying, why and for how long i was in yaroslavl, and what i was doing out by myself (don't you have friends?) i explained that we'd all just split up to go home after the match, and they got excited when they found out i'd been out rooting for the home team. We ended up chatting about hockey for a little while, and they told me I could get out of the cell and sit down inside the kiosk and talk with them some more. I guess the one good surprise of the night was when one of them asked me, roughly: so, how do you feel about niggers?

uhm. i'm still not really sure what they were looking for, because when i told them i don't really have problems with anyone i got a possibly sarcastic 'oh, thank god.' anyway, they turned out to be all right, and they seemed to respect the fact that i was learning the language and could speak well enough to keep my head above water...they offered me a cigarrette and asked me about home, and how i liked yaroslavl, and were pretty obviously just bored out of their skulls. they let me go and wished me well after about 15 minutes, and that was that.

We were supposed to go mushroom hunting today, but that was postponed until monday due to the weather. Not much planned for the weekend...my housekeeper is gone until sunday again, so i'm pretty much free to sleep late and study/watch tv/wander around the city/eat when i'm hungry. things couldn't be better here.

photos

John McCardell's op-ed in the New York Times

2004-09-16T12:36:00.000+04:00

What Your College President Didn't Tell You

John McCardell has an excellent op-ed piece in the ny times, on his thoughts after a successful and popular 13 year tenure as president of Middlebury College. It touches on the outdated tenure system, the problems with college ratings (us news & world report, etc), and the national drinking age. It's unfortunate he felt he was only able to do this after stepping down as president and returning to the faculty....

ymca

2004-09-16T10:02:00.000+04:00

so it's already been a couple of days since our visit to the ymca, and the pictures more or less speak for themselves...but i had to say something. this 'ymca' was a small gym/sauna/lounge that groups of up to 10 or so can rent out for about $12 an hour. Split among the bunch of us, it was a relatively inexpensive place to hang out and unwind, and the facilities were surpisingly nice. A pretty decent little gym, two separate saunas/jacuzzis/showers, fooseball, table tennis, russian billiards, and a comfortable lounge with a tv and vcr. If anyone's planning on spending anytime in yaroslavl' soon, it's highly recommended. i think it russian it was called ИМКА, but i have no idea what that would stand for...

if you want to know more than that, you're going to have to ask the participants personally.

the links

2004-09-15T15:26:00.000+04:00

here they are. the old links don't work anymore, but they will soon.

photos!

2004-09-15T13:54:00.000+04:00

so the new photos are up, and i reloaded the moscow and yaroslavl' photos (and a number of new ones) at better resolutions. i didn't have time to order/caption everything yet...but soon. also, our adventure to the YMCA was a complete success, but the photos will have to speak for themselves for now. more on that soon.

anyway, here's to impatience:

the photos will have to wait. the internet connection isn't really working and i've got this sneaking suspicion that someone is going to show up and make me song russian folk songs in the near future. i'll try to post the albums tonight.

in lighter news

2004-09-14T16:01:00.000+04:00

i started taking pictures of the city last night, and i'm going to take some more on my way home from the university in a few minutes. I think I'm going with friends to Yaroslavl's YMCA tonight, where, i'm told, it's fun to stay. Also we're getting tickets to another locomotive game on thursday, so hopefully I'll have some pictures of that as well.

I'm going to go home and see what the Putin-friendly entertainment box has to say for itself.

the quiet revolutionary

2004-09-14T15:06:00.000+04:00

Putin has finally taken what many said was the next logical step in his consolidation of power. In the midst of our own intelligence agency reorganization, we would do well to watch how President Putin uses concerns over terrorism to strong arm through his power consolidation. If Putin's new plan is enacted, as it almost certainly will be, there will be virtually no significant checks left on Putin or United Russia.

I'll write more later, other people are waiting to use this computer. Here's the gist of it from the NY Times:

Under Mr. Putin's proposals, which he said required only legislative approval and not constitutional amendments, the governors or leaders of the country's 89 regions would no longer be elected by popular vote but rather by local legislatures - and only after the president's nomination. Seats in the lower house of the federal Parliament, or Duma, would be elected entirely on national party slates, eliminating district races across the country that now decide half of Parliament's composition. In elections last December, those races accounted for all of the independents and liberals now serving in the Duma.

I'm not really sure how else to react to this. It's a power grab, masked as a national unity movement in the face of international terrorism. Watch for a mellow reaction from team Bush, which I assure you, is taking notes. I guess I really was hoping that Putin would be clever enough to work with the already enormous power he holds; flagrant steps away from the letter and the spirit of the constitution like these will only serve to undermine Putin's credibility with his people and the international community. I really can't help but to read this as another show of weakness on Putin's part. I think he's realizing that at some point people are going to start expecting results and improvements during his second term, and certainly the war in Chechnya is no closer to an acceptable end.

Although Putin has only just begun his second (and constitutionally mandatory last consecutive) term, I think question of what's next is already on the plate here. Since United Russia is basically Vladimir Putin's party (as opposed to Putin being United Russia's candidate...), it's hard to imagine him losing much power after 'leaving the presidency' should he decide he doesn't want to. Who knows - maybe Putin wanted to directly appoint his governors so that he could test a whole bunch of United Russia party (president) loyalists to get a feel for competent and malleable successors?

The reactions to this will be harsh (and rightly so), but it won't be Putin who reinstalls the creepy Stalinist state. I'm more worried about what's down the road for Russia if something happens to Putin and he leaves the hulking super-presidential state to move and evolve on its own. After Putin entirely leaves the political spectrum for whatever reason, it won't be 'united Russia' or the Russian people picking the new president, it will be the siloviki. And so maybe the capital will move to Petersburg once again?

Really what I'm getting at is for everyone back home (and all the Americans abroad, for that matter) to get it together and get Bush out of office so I have a happy place to come home next June. Please?

and sure enough

2004-09-14T01:04:00.000+04:00

i return.

i mentioned how in moscow you can see tremendously expensive cars (and virtually only tremendously expensive cars) all over the center of the city. in yaroslavl', it's something of a different story - the vast majority (by my eye) of cars in the city are russian models (esp. lada), and while there are some foreign cars they tend to be more moderately priced than the luxury models racing through moscow.

however. there is, i'm discovering, a very certain and visible contingent of mafiosi (and/or new russians) in yaroslavl' and with them it's more or less the same idea as in moscow. if you're not familiar with the idea of 'new russians', do a google search for some jokes, and you'll quickly get the idea. anyhow, we ended up in hotel cafe (Европа) on one of the main streets in yaroslavl', outside of which was parked a line pricey cars with all but tinted windshields. and tinted in russia isn't like tinted in the back of the american SUV - i think this sort of tinted is against the law in most parts of the US.

anyway we spent the better part of this evening in a crowded cafe next to two (easily) 400 lb men who were paying for their beers with 1000 ruble notes and being generally (by yarsoavl' standards) extravagant. one of the pair was missing the bettter part of one of his fingers. the whole affair was almost funny in that it all so resembled the hollywood image of mafiosi, which is all russian mafiosi have to base their image on.

...that said, I bought a leather jacket, which i never would have though of doing back home, and i'm going out of my way to blend in. i'm not wild about the whole affair, but as i'm often out late it's more a security thing than a matter of 'fitting in.' and if i'm going to be running around the city taking digital photos...well...that's already a different matter. for example, i had to try to figure out a discreet way to take a picture of the big lenin statute in 'red square' (in front of my university) tonight because no matter where i stood i was in someone's way. either tonight, if i get ambitious on the way home, or tomorrow i'm going to do the walk along the volga and take pictures of the churches/parks/monuments etc there.

so that's all for now. hopefully more pictures soon. i'm currently in the process of finding a regular yaroslavl' state university course that fits my middlebury course schedule. this is a nightmare. i spent the better part of today walking between the history department and the building where middlebury's offices are located trying to find something that fits. the consensus was that, while classes started two weeks ago, i shouldn't worry about it because the schedule is going to be changing for at least another week and i'm not going to know which classes i'll be able to take for a while yet.

almost everything works better here with resigned fascination.

already late

2004-09-13T23:43:00.000+04:00

I was planning on hitting the streets tonight and taking some pretty pictures of Yaroslavl', but it's already getting late and I'm getting lazy. It'll probably be another few days before I can post them anyway because the USB cables here at the net cafe aren't the right size for my camera.

So what else? I'm getting used to being here. I'm getting used to not smiling (or even looking at people) on the street. I recognize the stray dogs around where I live. I spend a lot of time reheating soup, and also stirring. I think i've almost figured out how to correctly buy groceries, which requires: a) telling one girl what you want and the prices of what you want, b) getting a receipt from that girl for those items, c)paying a different girl out a counter and getting a receipt from her, d) bring the paid receipt back to the first girl, who then collects the various items. But, that seems to vary from store to store, and as much as you can work up your hate for the big chains of western stores, there's something to be said for convenience.

I have three minutes left, so i'm going to post this far. I might be back soon, as net zone owes me change, and since they probably still don't have it , I'll likely have to settle for some more time on the computer. So, this is likely to be continued in the very near future.

photos

2004-09-11T15:48:00.000+04:00

there should be more photos soon, as i think i should be able to connect my camera via USB to the computers here in net zone. i still won't be able to post them directly to the blog, but soon i'll get permanent links up to the photo 'albums' at ofoto. also if that works i should be able to post more full sized photos, as opposed to the cropped and crunches ones thus far. more on that soon - i'm thinking about going out either tonight or tomorrow night and taking pictures of the city. and there will certainly be pictures from sochi.

Sochi

2004-09-10T16:17:00.000+04:00

October 1-7 we're going to Moscow and then flying to Sochi for vacation! And we've hardly had time to get cold yet!

Локомотив

2004-09-09T22:09:00.000+04:00

Yesterday a bunch of us went to see Yaroslavl's hockey team Локомотив (locomotive) play against one of Moscow's best teams, Динамо (Dinamo). I'm not sure where to start.

Apparently not last year, but the two immediately preceding years locomotive won the russian hockey league championships, so the team has a pretty serious following. The big rivalry is with Moscow teams especially with Dinamo, which had a significant contingent of fans who traveled four hours to see the match. So from the start we knew that it would be an exciting day, even if the hockey was lousy.

The bad news first: locomotive lost 2-0, but there were some lousy calls, and at least two "loco" goals called back - the match was pretty even. Anyway, the hockey was very good, and i'm not in much of a position to comment on it specifically because i don't know american hockey that well. They seemed to call rather a lot of penalties though, and when they fell over they sat around on the ice and looked around like american basketball players do after the slightest contact. Also there weren't any fights, which i guess they must go out of their way to avoid with rivalry matches where it could spill out into the stadium or streets...

I guess the biggest surprise of the night was the stadium - it was brand new, and easily one of the nicest hockey rinks i've seen anywhere. It was tremendously clean and comfortable, and actually had an almost family sort of atmosphere. I say almost...there was a squad of girls dancing most of the night behind one of the goals and, well, the fans were considerably more loud and vulgar than anything you can really hear anywhere in america. but, then, you get that on the bus ride over too. all said and done, it was a great experience for about 150 rubles (including transportation over and back) which is about $6. and we had really great seats. so it's definitely something i'll be doing again, and next time i'm going to bring my camera since everything was relatively calm.

also another interesting phenomenon: at the end of each period (and literally not a second earlier) somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of the spectators stood up and started filing out for concessions/bathroom/et cetera. almost no one left their seats during the actual match, and even at the very end when dinamo was up 2-0 only a handful of people were leaving. So that's an idea of the fanatics who were in the stands - this was only the 2nd or 3rd match of the year i think.

so that's about it for now. i wish i'd written this post after the game, i feel like i had a lot more i wanted to say then. no matter, there will be more hockey soon.

photos!

2004-09-07T21:07:00.000+04:00

well, sort of. i only got some of them up, and in a very limited fashion, but here are the links!

This is going to have to be a very brief post, as my time is running out. i still haven't really annotated the photos, but there you go. they'll have to speak for themselves for the time being. more soon, hopefully.

scott

aha! and, lunch.

2004-09-07T13:44:00.000+04:00

or more properly, аха! the email posts are again working. i'm currently in the yaroslavl state university room that was set aside for the very small basically non-department of russian as a second language, which means i'm working from a very old windows 98 machine and mostly trusting that the small horizontal lines running across the 'screen' are, indeed, my text.

this morning i experienced the closest thing yet to the american notion of good customer service. on sunday our group all had photos taken in a little shop near my apartment for our visas and student cards, but mine didn't turn out properly - i blinked. In american photo studios they seem to take either a couple pictures or to at least check on the digital screen to be certain that picture came out; here, to my surprise, the gentleman snapped but one picture no more than 10 seconds after i sat down (i wasn't asked to say cheese, and judging by even the bridal photographs on the wall, smiling isn't traditional) and quickly called in the next subject. anyway he was just opening his shop while i was walking past it on the way to the university and he invited me to step in and redo the picture quickly so that i wouldn't be too late to class. it turns out i was fortunate to have caught the owner/photographer and not his secretary, who arrived just after i did. she screamed at the next guy who came in that it wasn't 9 yet and that he'd have to wait (even though the door was open and it was very evident that they had already accepted one customer).

also i've noticed that every time i order something, i almost invariably get a НЕТУ! which is a curt and colloquial answer something along the lines of there aren't/isn't any. nothing tremendously unusual about that, except that in american people are more in that the habit of either apologizing for not having something they typically have or suggesting something analogous. at lunch today i wanted две сосиски в тесте, which i could see through the glass window and which i thought would be left to me by the two old women in front of me. not so. fortunately i had already prepared my запасной вариант and was able to order something else without having to annoy the already clearly overworked girl at the counter or the 8 thirsty russians behind me.

my one mistake, apparently, was ordering a coke. that really through the girl off, which in turn made me nervous. i realized later that everyone else in this little cafeteria i found was at the very least drinking a beer, and some were drinking either beer with vodka or just glasses of vodka. which is to say, glasses in the sense of стаканы, that is, what an american might expect to be served a glass of water or soda in.

all things considered it was a good lunch. cheap, fast, much. i guess the блины kiosk on the corner closes in bad weather, which is too bad as i was planning on visiting it again. i ended up talking with a very unhappy guy who (i'm not sure) either works in or around the university in some custodial position. i'm not sure how that will compare to the relatively nicer cafe bosphor where my friends went for lunch and are presumably still eating, but i'll let you know once i check it out.

this afternoon's mission: walking around town to various university buildings to try and find and sign up for a mainstream class. i might just run back home first and grab my umbrella.

the news in russia

2004-09-07T13:17:00.000+04:00

also another quick note regarding content here. eventually i'd like to write more about russian politics and the political climate here, but my language facilities aren't really where they need to be yet for that. izvestia's editor was just forced to step down after critical coverage of the beslan crisis, which i find worrisome as at least elements of the print media have remained relatively independent of government interference (virtually all russian tv is either government friendly, or self-censoring at this point).

as an aside, however, i think the beslan crisis has shown that putin has weak points despite united russia's dominance in the government and the fractionalization of opposition parties and even despite his continually immense popularity with many russians. his timid reaction to the two airplane explosions (ie the fact that the government was so slow to conclude that it had been terrorism that downed the planes) struck me as surprising and also telling of the fact that putin is worrying that russians might start critically judging his ability to bring security and some reasonable end to the chechen conflict. when the editor of a major paper is forced to step down (regardless of the official reasons...here i think readership complaints were probably cited rather than government intervention...) because of what is deemed to be detrimental coverage, it belies an a certain lack of self-confidence from the kremlin. i haven't seen a lot of that since putin took office in 2000, but if that's indeed what it is, the repercussions for civil liberties, the war in chechnya, and the elections in 2008 could be considerable.

my guess is that things won't be carried too far, as putin is too clever to make those old mistakes. but we'll see.

test email post

2004-09-07T12:39:00.000+04:00

for some reason my email posts haven't been connecting. this is a test.

laundry, dinner, more wandering

2004-09-06T20:43:00.000+04:00

so it turns out doing laundry in the bathtub isn't the most fun i've had since i've been here. i think i'm going to be exploring other options in the near future, including not washing my clothes regularly like the rest of the country.

also i had to laugh the other night. my housekeeper (i'm going to call her that from here on out until i think of something better, because that's basically what the russian term translates to) called her friend's daughter (my age) to cook dinner for me the first night she wasn't going to be home. that was great of course, and i couldn't help enjoying the assumption that i was entirely helpless around the house. which, it turns out, i am. aside from almost certainly bungling the laundry, which is currently drying around the apartment, i made a mess just trying to heat up a dinner that was already prepared for me and i broke a water pot thing with still-too-hot-water. we have tempered glass back home right? i never remember cracking anything with too hot water.

so anyway i was eager to get back out of the empty apartment and wander a little bit. tomorrow i need to miss my first class to go get a visa picture retaken with some very angry and very disinterested photographer, and i need to try to find a more or less equivalent water pot sometime during the day as well.

also, as i sit here in Net Zone i'm realizing that as much as russians love listening to american music, they seem to catch it all about 5 years back. i wish i knew the names of some of these songs, but suffice it to say they all recall kennebunk middle school dances. earlier in the 90's that would have been somewhat more imaginable as everything moved over here more slowly then, but everything is digital now and even in yaroslavl' there has been explosion of western stores and fashions over the past two years (i'm told that's about when it started). so that's just my observation on the american pop music i've heard in the cafes/restaurants/stores etc. i really don't know what people are listening to hear because i still don't really know anyone yet. i guess we're supposed to start looking for a mainstream class tomorrow, in which case i'll be meeting more people, hopefully. also once i get settled in i'm probably going to try to find a chess club or something. our coordinator in yaroslavl' warned me that everyone there would kill me know matter how well i think i play chess, especially the 8 year olds. more on that story as it develops.

well this has been a complaining post, but all things considered it was a good day. oh one more thing. i've seen about 5 grandmother-aged women running around yaroslavl with light purple hair. different ones, i'm sure of it. is this the result of some twisted soviet hair dye? the sulfur in the water? bad taste? i just don't know. i'm sure you're as concerned as i am, so i will keep you posted on this as i learn more.

i think there's a vigil in one of the main squares for the beslan victims. i'm going to go check it out. ciao.

2004-09-06T16:18:00.000+04:00

i'm starting this post without a title, which should serve as some indication of its likely direction. i have another almost entirely free afternoon and evening to explore the city, which i'm liking more and more as i get to see it. we toured the old part of yaroslavl, which is a tiny relatively open park and walkway where the city's two rivers merge. apparently the city is planning to rebuild a church there that was destroyed at some point during the 70 years of communism, and although i have no real right to be telling a city of 700,000 some odd natives what to do, it is a very nice park and they should think longer and harder about it.

i'm quickly realizing that i still have some essential shopping to do. i ducked into Женскии Мир (the woman's world) long enough to buy some laundry detergent so that i can do laundry in the bathtub tonight while i have the flat to myself. that worked out well as it was on the way to the internet cafe, and easy enough to find. Walking around in a fleece vest isn't going to be ideal for long, however, and in the next few days i'm planning on finding a coat or jacket of some sort at one of the big market areas in the city. this will be better because the weather will probably turn for the cold and rainy soon, i won't stick out so sorely, and i'll have better pockets to carry my wallet and papers. also looking for a bookbag of some sort and a water filter. the water here smells and tastes distinctly sulfurous, and while it's more than safe to drink after it's been boiled, it's not a taste i'm particularly eager to get used to.

which leads me to something i am ready to get used to. at dinner last night the woman i'm staying with offered to make coffee for me and her dinner guest, and asked me to advise her on the process as she said she rarely makes coffee (russians drink a lot of tea). to make a long story short, she was asking me for advice on making coffee without a coffee maker. i explained to her that we usually make it with this machine that runs the water through the ground coffee and into a pot, etc etc, whereas she dumped a bunch of old ground coffee (the beans had been sitting in an open bag in a cupboard for who knows how long) into a pot of water and set it to boil.

i felt bad about the whole thing because i couldn't really convince her that i thought the whole thing was fine. she assumed that because it wasn't the way that i was used to, i wouldn't like it or i thought worse of it, and she even made me promise not to tell anyone back home that that's how she makes coffee. i think i more or less succeeded in explaining to her that i really did like the coffee because it was a lot stronger than most americans make it, and that's how i prefer it. however, it wouldn't really be a tolerable cup at, say, starbucks, which again is fine by me. anyway that's the worst of cultural imperialism - when other people automatically assume that their way is worse because it's different. the whole thing made me feel rather crummy, in the long run probably because i drank about a cup of coffee (which is to say a pot of coffee and a cup of coffee grounds) to make her feel better.

so that's what i'm up against. tremendous hospitality, and at it's absolute worst, food and preparations that i'm just not used to. i think i'm going to get along well here. anyway that's it for now. i might come back later tonight after dinner if i'm out wandering and if i don't decide to watch a dubbed bruce willis movie on the TV. i'm sure there will be one, i just know it!

yaroslavl'

2004-09-05T14:00:00.000+04:00

well i tried to email a post from the university yesterday, with no apparent success. i'm in yaroslavl now, and getting settled down...the first of my classes start tomorrow, and i have most of the day to wander around the city. my living situation seems pretty ideal - i'm in the center of the city, and living in a nice apartment with an accommodating woman. she works 3 24 hour shifts per week, and spends some time at her dacha, so it sounds like i'll have the place to myself a lot. also, although the food might not stack up compared to what all my friends in europe are eating this year, my housekeeper, larisa anatolievna is a good cook and i've enjoyed everything she's made so far.

so. so much for me. a few more observations on the new and old in russia. i have some great pictures already, but it looks like it might be a while before i can find a computer with a fast enough connection to upload much. all the computers in the internet cafes have the hard drives either locked shut or hidden, so i can't really bring anything in on disk. maybe i'll be able to post from the university.

the university building where i'm studying is about 100 years old, and stands in a square dominated by a truly towering statue of lenin pointing off to somewhere in the distance. the few times i've walked by there have been fresh flowers there. although, of course, remnants of the soviet era are ubiquitous in russia, but many cities didn't keep all of the statues of lenin and what not, so even for russia it's a bit of an unusual sight now. i hope i get a chance to post some photos i took of the architecture in moscow. aside from all the beautiful red square/saint basil's cathedral/GUM photos, there were some really magnificent churches and buildings. the old government buildings were somewhere between extremely imposing and terrifying depending on the time of day, especially the old KBG center near detskii mir and all that. i've never seen anything like it.

i'm rambling a bit. i never really finished talking about moscow, or my train ride from moscow, but suffice it to say i met up with my friends from middlebury, roman and emma, and roman's girlfriend and roman took us around on the metro and then drove us around in his car for more sight seeing. lots of beautiful pictures, for someday in the future. we drove by the place where a lot of the party brass lived in soviet days, and roman told me that people were allegedly buried alive in the walls of the building...

the train ride was an experience as well - about four hours, which wouldn't have been too bad because middlebury sprung for a decent train had we not all had ridiculous amounts of luggage. it was, i think, my first train ride ever, so i guess i can't really compare it to much, but i gather my compatriots found the whole thing amusing. i watched out the windows most of the way as we passed through the little villages and towns. in moscow, running around through the mercedes, bmws, lamborghinis, and cars i'd never even seen outside of magazines, it's easy forget that the vast majority of russia is still living in tremendous poverty. even in yaroslavl, there aren't really good and bad neighborhoods that you can pick out in america by the housing and the cars (or lack their of) on the streets because all the housing is still soviet. so even in a relatively less well off city, things still look better.

well, my last word for now. when i was in moscow 10 people were killed and some 50 or so were wounded in a suicide bombing near a metro station. anywhere that's a tragedy. in russia, i'm realizing, even the 90 people lost on the domestic flights last week had to be quickly buried so russians could begin mourning the 350 some odd people in beslan, and start tending to the additional hundreds of heavily wounded. i heard someone in moscow mention that in russia everything is bigger, and in a word, russia is bigger. i think there might be something to that.

i'm going to go find some lunch and get some money changed.

Roman, Red Square (x2), Restaurant

2004-09-02T15:39:00.000+04:00

Just don't get used to my fancy titles.

I guess a lot of the western media seems to think that russians are particularly on edge after the recent events in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, including the (as far as i know) rumor that there is still at least one chechen women with explosives in moscow (two were on the planes, one blew up at the metro and apparently one is some sort of boss type). i don't know if this is true, or if it has been substantiated or what, but that's what I heard. I'm leaving for Yaroslavl tomorrow afternoon, with or without my missing suitcase, and hopefully i'll be able to start posting photos from there.

Last night I met up with my good friend from Middlebury, Roman, and he gave Dan and I a fun tour of the city. We went to a small and entirely unmarked restaurant in this basement, which he said is a really popular place for fast and inexpensive russian food. certainly not a fast-food place, but it was comparable to a small pub i guess. It was crowded, a bit noisy, and a good time. I might have remembered what it was called if there had been a sign or anything, but the only way to find this restaurant was to know someone who knows where it is. Dan and I could have gotten by with our russian, but we were lucky to have roma because the hostess wasn't very friendly and the waitress was impatient, even with him. all told though, it was a vastly more enjoyable experience than eating in the little tourist cafe along the arbat, where the waiter wouldn't even answer me in russian.

after dinner we started walking and roman ended up taking us past a few really beautifully lit up churches and into the district where bulgakov lived and worked. We took the tram where annushka severed berlioz' head, which runs past patriarch's park (where the famous first encounter in master & margarita takes place). from there we walked back to red square (i went there earlier in the day after orientation activities, too) and we did the touristy thing and took a bunch of pictures. It's quite a bit prettier at night, although it was temporarily less crowded when i was there during the day because there were sun showers and i had the fortune of getting out into the middle of the square just as the rain was stopping..

anyhow, a lot of nice pictures, and a few short videos from red square and the tram ride. hopefully i'll be able to post some of it once i get to yaroslavl, but none of the public computer places i've found in moscow permit people to bring in anything on disk.

plan for tonight is meeting up with roman around 5. he's trying to gather everyone else he can find in moscow from middlebury so we can all say hello and goodbye for the year. after that, who knows? nights almost invariable end earlier here, it seems, because the metro shuts down at 1 and what's left to do outside in moscow at that point i've no business taking part in.

another note of some interest - moscow is a tremendously clean city, at least in the center. the metro, especially, is remarkably clean for a major city because they shut it down for four hours every night and orchestrate a monstrous clean up operation. if i get a chance today i'm going to ride the inner ring of the metro and take pictures of the metro stations because they are stunning. some of the ones built during stalin's reign seriously look like rooms in a palace or something, and if i don't get pictures up soon you should look for some on the internet.

however, i must be going. also have to check to see if lufthansa has found my bag yet. hope all are well

scott

update from moscow.

2004-09-01T15:31:00.000+04:00

having some trouble with email posts. anyone know why that might be? i'm emailing from my regular address but from the java client...although i don't think i've had problems with that previously.

-----Исходное сообщение-----
От: Rose, Scott
Отправлено: Ср 01.09.2004 8:16

dearest friends and happenstance visitors,

first and foremost, i was not at or anywhere near the rizhskaya metro station suicide bombing, although i heard that hunter from middlebury was right there. he's also ok. also, i am not being held hostage in the south, which i just heard about. i don't really have any details on that yet, you can probably find out more on the internet about it than anyone here in russia will. so especially for the parents: remember everytime a dozen people get killed in moscow, the chances are pretty good i wasn't one of them. also i'll be in yaroslavl by the weekend, which hasn't to my knowledge had to deal with any of this chechen crap.

a few points of interest from my day or so in moscow (i'm in a hotel right next to the arbat, the long touristy walking section with over priced restaurants, kiosks and vendors). Russian newspapers do not hesitate to show graphic photos on front pages. The copy of the (english) moscow times i'm looking at now has what would be to his former acquaintances, a very recognizable photo of a dead man and a couple mangled cars. while everyone gripes about freedom of the media (and reasonably so) in russia, americans would do well to remember that if our newspapers showed realistic photos from Iraq, the war wouldn't be so damn fun for everyone.

crossing a street in moscow is incredibly perilous. i'm told it's much worse than in new york city, and i can assure everyone that it's at least 3 or 4 times more difficult than in Middlebury, VT (where it often suffices to listen both ways rather than look both way). apparently it's something one has to get the hang of - you can end up stranded in the middle of a street (4 or 5 wide lands) with cars whipping past you at 40-50 and upwards miles per hour. this is frightening to the casual new england participant.

an interesting anecdote that i had heard before, and really sums up a lot of what i understand getting by in russia to be: When NASA first started sending astronauts into space, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens don't function in zero gravity. To solve this, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion dollars (just think, if they'd just set it aside and let it apperciate some where, we could be funding another war by now) developing zero gravity pens. my grandparents got me one last christmas, actually. they can write on almost any surface and in tempatures from below freezing to 300 degress celsius.

the russians used a pencil.

and so i hope to learn to overcome the smaller challenges. my lost bag still hasn't shown up, so i'm wearing unfortunately warm clothes around unfortunately warm moscow. i'm told that it will be cooler by the weekend at the latest (when i'll be in yaroslavl anyway).

what else. a few notes on, of course, alcohol. there are no open container laws in moscow, and beer is widely available from kiosks on the streets. wine and alcohol you actually have to go into a store for, although there are (i haven't seen any yet) walk in restaurants where you can order a shot of vodka, pay for it, and leave. there are ups and downs to all of this, of course. in russia beer isn't considered 'alcohol,' but rather some sort of broadly and mysteriously more preferred soda (two oat sodas, gary.) and, although there are a lot of the popular 'imports' that we see in america, most of the russian beers have much higher alcohol percentages than american beer. i tried a bottle of три богатыря (i think that's how it's spelled) last night, and was surprised to discover halfway through that it was 11%. we had to pretty much abandon the arbat by 11 o'clock because all the other tourists were gone, and the russians remaining were getting pretty boisterous.

i'm looking forward to getting to yaroslavl though because most everyone in shops here speaks at least some english, and when they hear my accent they just answer me in english regardless of how decent my grammar was. in yaroslavl that won't be a problem. i think we're going to see red square tonight, and i'm still hoping to get in touch with roman/emma/natasha and whomever else is in moscow. hunter? anton? iskandar? gosha? i heard you guys might be around, but there is little chance you are reading this.

ok. my time seems to be expiring. write me emails - i'd love to hear from you guys and i'll be able to answer my mail more leisurely in yaroslavl where there is an internet cafe right near where i live with broadband. also it costs about a dollar an hour, which is spectacular. it's about a dollar for twenty minutes here, which by and standards isn't terrible either. in the "VIP" section (about 30 cents more per 20 minutes) they have big comfy couches.

also re: yarsoslavl, i found out the details of my living situation, which sound excellent. more on that when i actually meet her, but i'm told she's a middle aged woman who isn't home much and is relatively better about giving students their space. also she supposed has a big (russian standards...) appartment with a 5-10 minute walk to the university/transportation/ and basically everything inthe center. i'm gettibng booted

so long for now!

Alive and well in Moscow

2004-08-31T19:59:00.000+04:00

After a long trip from Portland, ME to Boston to NYC and onto Frankfurt and Moscow, I am alive and well. One of my bags was lost, but it was with lufthansa so i might be able to get it. More later,

Scott

setting off

2004-08-30T05:47:00.000+04:00

I'm heading out at 4.30 tomorrow morning, flying from Portland, ME to Boston, and from Boston onto JFK in New York. I get to rub elbows with republicans and maybe even some of their famous jesus rockers for most of the day in JFK. Flight for Hamburg leaves JFK sometime around 4. From Hamburg I'll be flying on to Moscow and arriving some time tuesday. I haven't really been able to bring myself to check and see when the flight actually arrives.

Anyway, i'm off. Hoping to goad myself into a little sleep (at 10 pm?). Also need to finish packing. I'd like to draw attention, once more, to one of my favorite internet bush games. Ok. до свидания.

Cheerleaders for Truth

2004-08-30T05:31:00.000+04:00

Cheerleaders for Truth:

'Did George Bush actually win a Varsity letter in Cheerleading at Yale? Or was this another 'no show' like the National Guard?' current and alumni Yale cheerleaders are asking. 'Why haven't any member of Bush's Cheerleading Squad come forward and verified that he actually attended practice and the games?'

Well played. Visit the Cheerleaders For Truth.

The World's Shortest Blog

2004-08-29T06:53:00.000+04:00

The World's Shortest Blog

Excellent. Please just check this out for yourselves. Offers a reward to the first person to pose a certain question to the President in a public forum. Also features a paypal button so you can contribute to the bounty.

timestamping

2004-08-29T05:57:00.000+04:00

a brief apology for the time stamping. it's currently set for +3, as i'll be in Moscow and then Yaroslavl starting next week. Also sorry for all the bush hating today. I'm getting it all outta my system now so I can write a bit about Yaroslavl when I get there. But you've gotta admit that Dole video is priceless.

The Greatest Generation...and it's idiot.

2004-08-29T05:36:00.000+04:00

Read the full article and see the video at slate.com. For those of you who are just joining us, this is considering Bob Dole publicly said that Kerry's wounds were superficial and that he never really spilt blood.

Democrats now have an unlikely ally in their quest to prove that Bush has a history of these kinds of dirty tricks: Bob Dole. No one has done more to lend establishment respectability to the falsehoods being peddled against Kerry than Dole. The former Senate majority leader and 1996 presidential nominee of the Republican Party made several demonstrably false statements about John Kerry's war record this past Sunday on CNN's Late Edition before saying that 'not every one of these people can be Republican liars. There's got to be some truth to the charges.'

But Dole also made another statement that day, one that hasn't been aired until now. Of McCain's charge to President Bush during a 2000 debate 'You should be ashamed' Dole told Wolf Blitzer, 'He was right.' Dole made the remark off-air, while CNN broadcast the Kerry ad called 'Old Tricks,' the one featuring McCain's 2000 debate remarks. The campaign stopped airing it recently at McCain's request.

Well Bob, that's pretty embarrassing. Maybe it's time for you to stick to pharmaceutical endorsements. And maybe it's time to start taking something for your memory.

Carl Lewis on Bush's use of the Olympics

2004-08-29T05:10:00.000+04:00

I told my father recently that I was secretly hoping the Iraqi soccer team would lose and lose quickly, and not out of any dislike for the team. Indeed, under any other American administration I certainly would be pulling for them. I had this fear, however, that the Bush team would have half the American south believing that Bush himself coached the Iraqi team. Anyway, here's a little passage I snatched from the Drudge report, which makes me feel better about it all.

Olympic gold hero accuses Bush

Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals in athletics in a record-breaking career, condemned Bush for using the presence of Iraqi and Afghan teams in Athens in a television advertisement to boost his chances of re-election. Criticizing Bush for linking his foreign policy with the two countries being allowed to compete here, Lewis said: 'I felt that was disingenuous. It is funny that we boycotted the 1980 Games [in Moscow] in support of Afghanistan, and now we're bombing Afghanistan,' he told the Athens News yesterday.

...

Iraq's footballers, who unexpectedly reached the semi-finals here, made clear last week they disliked the advertisement and regarded American soldiers in Iraq as occupiers rather than liberators. Bush was planning to visit the Greek capital and attend yesterday's football final if Iraq had been involved, but they lost in the semi-finals last week. He was also criticized for misusing without permission Olympic symbols, which are protected emblems.

I'll bet I'm not the only one who was guiltily hoping they'd fall short of the gold....right? right? c'mon...

michael moore's open letter to bush

2004-08-29T02:40:00.000+04:00

while it's true, i've never been nuts about michael moore, his new open letter to president bush is pretty funny. here's the bottom half, after his 'praise' of bush's war service.

So, to make it up to you, I have written some new ads you can use on TV. People will soon tire of the swift boat veterans and you are going to need some fresh, punchier material. Feel free to use any of these:

ANNOUNCER: "When the bullets were flying all around him in Vietnam, what did John Kerry do? He said he leaned over the boat and 'pulled a man out of the river.' But, as we all know, men don't live in the river -- fish do. John Kerry knows how to tell a big fish tale. What he won't tell you is that when the enemy was shooting at him, he ducked. Do you want a president who will duck? Vote Bush."

ANNOUNCER: "Mr. Kerry's biggest supporter, Sen. Max Cleland, claims to have lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam. But he still has one arm! How did that happen? One word: Cowardice. When duty called, he was unwilling to give his last limb. Is that the type of selfishness you want hanging out in the White House? We think not. Vote for the man who would be willing to give America his right frontal lobe. Vote Bush."

Hope these help, Mr. Bush. And remember, when the American death toll in Iraq hits 1,000 during the Republican convention, be sure to question whether those who died really did indeed "die" -- or were they just trying to get their faces on CNN's nightly tribute to fallen heroes? The sixteen who've died so far this week were probably working hand in hand with the Kerry campaign to ruin your good time in New York. Stay consistent, sir, and always, ALWAYS question the veracity of anyone who risks their life for this country. It's the least they deserve.

Yours,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

P.S. George, I know you said you don't read the newspaper, but USA Today has given me credentials to the Republican convention to write a guest column each day next week (Tues.-Fri.). If you don't want to read it, you and I will be in the same building so maybe I could come by and read it to you? Lemme know...

I admit it. well done, mr. moore. don't make me take it back by being an ass at the RNC.

GOP Celebrities

2004-08-28T03:54:00.000+04:00

I thought this was pretty funny. It first struck me when i heard about moveon's vote for change tour with bruce springsteen, dave mathews band, pearl jam, the dixie chicks, death cab for cutie, and bunch of other bands that i'd at least heard of.

But the sad truth is, the real difference between Democrats and Republicans is that their celebrities are, like, actually famous and ours are, well, singing weirdly erotic songs about Our Savior.

i think i'll be on the plane to russia when the entertainment section of the RNC is on the air. bummer.

Police Confirm Pipe Bomb Blast at Stem-Cell Lab

2004-08-28T02:57:00.000+04:00

well this is pretty classy. brought to you by the folks who invented abortion clinic bombing. but hey, it worked to stop abortions right? why not give it a try with the stem cell research. that's top notch work, guys, top notch.

BOSTON (Reuters) - An explosion that blew out a number of windows at a Boston-area laboratory specializing in stem-cell research was caused by a pipe bomb, local police said on Friday. No one was wounded in Thursday's early morning blast at Watertown, Massachusetts-based Amaranth Bio, which says on its Web site its technology is focused on organ regeneration and that it is working on cures for diabetes and liver disorders.

In a statement, Watertown police confirmed the explosion was the result of a pipe bomb and said they believe someone broke into the facility. No arrests have been made, police said. Local radio station WBZ reported that police had identified a "person of interest" in connection with the explosion. Watertown police were not immediately available for comment on the report.

site changes

2004-08-28T01:31:00.000+04:00

a few small changes to the site last night and today. the search bar at the top of the screen (not new) can be used to search just this site, and the search box on the sidebar at the right launches to google. cool. also i changed to haloscan for my commenting system. i didn't have any real problems with the blogger one, but haloscan is nice because it's easier for non-blogger.com users to use. also all the good blogs seem to use it, and while i don't understand all of their secrets, i sure as hell can copy them. also added a blogroll in lieu of my older blog list. this won't appear much different to you, but let me assure you, it's way cooler than before. if you notice anything quirky or buggy, please let me know. also, as you can see, instead of a benign "comments" link, i now have a verging-on-pathetic plea for comments. it changes to something nicer after the first comment. so you should feel bad and give it a try. all my old comments were canned when i switched systems. ok. that's all for now.

a first

2004-08-27T19:10:00.000+04:00

Bush Acknowledges Iraq 'Miscalculation'

WASHINGTON - President Bush said for the first time on Thursday he made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be" after U.S. troops went to Iraq, The New York Times reported. The insurgency, he maintained, was the unintended result of a "swift victory" that led to Iraqi troops disappearing into the cities and mounting a rebellion.

Bush also told the newspaper he did not believe his Democratic opponent had lied about his time in Vietnam. The group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has aired advertisements challenging John Kerry's account of his service, and claiming Kerry lied about circumstances surrounding his war medals. Kerry has accused Bush of using the group as a front to run a smear campaign. "I think Senator Kerry should be proud of his record," Bush said. "No, I don't think he lied."

Public opinion initially favored Bush's decision to go to war but, after months of casualties and chaos, the public is evenly divided on the subject now. In a separate interview with USA Today, Bush said Thursday that he believes he made the right decision to invade Iraq and thinks voters will not deny him a second term even if they disagree with the war.

i'm not really sure what this is going to mean, but it's major news. this is either the first time or one of the very first times that the bush administration has admitted to making a mistake; certainly it's the first time that they've said (and not only 'they,' but bush) that iraq didn't quite pan out. I have no idea whether this will be good or bad for him, but i think it was a smart and well timed move by the bush campaign. it follows a recent pattern - bush makes a small concession once, e.g. saying something positive about kerry's war record, and then scott mclellan uses it as a sweeping answer to inconvenient questions.

so i do think this will help bush, but i also think it's a sign of fear in the reelection campaign. bush has now taken the at least reasonable stance on iraq - that mistakes were made, so he can deflect criticism of the war without actually admitting that the whole damn thing was a mistake. in fact, it's such an utterly reasonable statement, i really don't understand why it wasn't made a long time ago. it's clearly a move to convince undecided voters who are dissatisfied with the war that the war shouldn't in and of it self be reason not to vote for bush. which, of course, it is.

Liberal MP has no apology for calling U.S. missile defence supporters idiots

2004-08-27T10:44:00.000+04:00

i guess i'll join the coalition of intolerant zealots too, although i've no real interest in damaging american-canadian relations. i've only met good canadians.

Prime Minister Paul Martin has urged Carolyn Parrish to withdraw her latest anti-American slur but hasn't demanded she apologize. The maverick Liberal MP says she won't back down. Parrish was just stating the obvious when she called missile defence supporters a "coalition of the idiots," she said in an interview. And she'd do it again. "I believe in free speech and I am a colourful speaker. I occasionally will use terms that other people find bold.

"This is too important a debate to be derailed by those kinds of comments," he said after a cabinet meeting Thursday. But Parrish won't be penalized, he said. Critics said that's a failure to rein in an intolerant "zealot" who will further damage Canada-U.S. relations.

Parrish made international headlines last year for publicly muttering: "Damn Americans, I hate the bastards."

well, i never!

in other good news

2004-08-27T09:14:00.000+04:00

middlebury finally over-nighted me my visa and passport, so in all likelihood i will be flying to russia on monday. i sold two more textbooks on half.com, including ben rifkin's opus, grammatika v kontekste. now if someone will only buy the damn workbook...

also - another note for russian school comrades, or anyone else going abroad next year. i'm not sure if this is particular to maine, but i was able to vote already even though the state hasn't received absentee ballots yet. in maine at least (maybe in your state too!), i was able to fill out a blank absentee ballot request form or something like that. basically it's a ballot without the candidates' names, so you'll have to remember not only whom not to vote for, and whom else not to vote for, but also john kerry and john edwards. that goes out especially to Матвей Матвеевич и Алина Ктознаетовна in arizona. also Даня in ohio. i'll bet Даня won't see this though. also, be sure to find out ahead of time if you have any other democrats running for national office in your state! tom allen for maine's first district in 2004!

scott rose out.

Manifesto - A press release from PRKA.

2004-08-27T09:13:00.000+04:00

Thanks to Scout at And Then... for the link. Check out the full text.

Last Thursday, my organization, People Reluctant To Kill for an Abstraction, orchestrated an overwhelming show of force around the globe.

At precisely 9 in the morning, working with focus and stealth, our entire membership succeeded in simultaneously beheading no one. At 10, Phase II began, during which our entire membership did not force a single man to suck another man's penis. Also, none of us blew himself/herself up in a crowded public place. No civilians were literally turned inside out via our powerful explosives. In addition, at 11, in Phase III, zero (0) planes were flown into buildings.

During Phase IV, just after lunch, we were able to avoid bulldozing a single home. Furthermore, we set, on roads in every city, in every nation in the world, a total of zero (0) roadside bombs which, not being there, did not subsequently explode, killing/maiming a total of nobody. No bombs were dropped, during the lazy afternoon hours, on crowded civilian neighborhoods, from which, it was observed, no post-bomb momentary silences were then heard.... -George Sanders